CSXT Double Stack Eastbound through Conyers, GA at about 60 MPH (My estimation). I had pulled out my 50mm f1.4 for the first time in many months and had forgotten just how crisp it was

Chassis n° AM300/3/1958

 

Sale Retromobile 2016 by Artcurial Motorcars

5 Février 2016

Estimation € 240.000 - 300.000

Sold for € 274.160

 

2.922 cc

6 Cylinder

 

Salon Retromobile 2016

Paris Expo - Porte de Versailles

Paris - France

Februari 2016

During Roman times the settlement was known as Astigi. Caesar ordered the town's fortification and refounded it as a Julian colony. According to Pliny the Elder who wrote in the 1st century AD, it was the rival of Cordova and Seville.

 

After the Romans, it was ruled by successively by Suevs and Visigoths. It was also from an early date the seat of a diocese. St. Fulgentius (died before 633), was named to the see by his brother Isidore of Seville.

 

In 711, Écija was conquered by an Islamic army on its way to Córdoba. Capital of an extensive Kūra, Écija preserved its condition as a centre of high agricultural productivity.

 

The place was seized by Christians in 1240. The proximity to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada turned Écija into a border town. Most of the mudéjar population was expelled in 1263. The Jewish population suffered the antisemitic revolt initiated after the assault on the jewry of Seville in June 1391, that spread across Andalusia. During the 15th century, Écija was the third most important urban centre of the Kingdom of Seville after Seville and Jerez. Estimations for the 15th century yield a population of about 18,000 (today 40.000).

 

The effects of the 1755 earthquake (Lisbon) forced a deep urban renewal.

 

Although Astigi was one of the most completely discovered Roman cities, the city council decided against all odds in 1998 to bulldoze the Roman ruins of Écija, including a forum, a bathhouse, a gymnasium and a temple, as well as dozens of private houses, and replace them with a car park.

 

But at least, there is the museum housed in the "Palacio de Benamejí"

 

This object is known as the "Ornamental Gold Plaque of Écija".

 

It is incomplete and made entirely of gold. The weight is 21.9 g. It is attributed to the Tartessian culture (ca. 7th century BC).

It is considered to be the finest specimen from the peninsula and, with the exception of some Etruscan pieces, is not comparable in structure to any other piece from this period in the Mediterranean region.

  

The Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree (in Spanish “El Oso y el Madroño”) is a sculpture from the second half of the 20th century, situated in the Spanish city of Madrid. It represents the coat of arms of Madrid and is found on the east side of the Puerta del Sol, between Calle de Alcalá and Carrera de San Jerónimo, in the historical centre of the capital.

 

The statue is a work of the sculptor Antonio Navarro Santafé (1906-1983) and it was inaugurated on 19 January 1967. It was promoted by the section of Culture of the City council of Madrid, which wanted to represent the main heraldic symbols of the city in a monument.

 

The first appearance of a wild bear and a strawberry tree on the coat of arms of the city was in the 13th century. Previously, it only incorporated a bear in passant attitude, until it was replaced in the aforementioned century by the two current figures. With this change, they wanted to symbolise the resolution adopted by the municipality and the Chapter of Priests and Beneficiaries after a long litigation about the control of Madrilenian pastures and trees. Since this agreement, the former became property of the Chapter and the latter of the council. From here they modified the arms, including a strawberry tree and of a bear in a new posture: leaning on the tree with both paws.

 

The sculpture has always been in the Puerta del Sol, but in two locations inside the square. Before 1986, it was situated in the east side of it, in the vicinity of the building between the Calle de Alcalá and the Carrera St. Jerónimo. That year, it was moved to the front of Carmen Street for the square's reform and remodeling, promoted by mayor Enrique Tierno Galván. In September 2009, with the integral renewal of the square promoted by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, it has gone back to its original location.

 

The Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree is made of stone and bronze. It weighs approximately 22 tons (20 tonnes) and stands 13 ft (4 m) tall. It rests on a staggered cubic pedestal of granite.

 

It represents in a real-life form the coat of arms of Madrid, with the tree taller than the bear, who supports his paws on the trunk and directs his attention towards one of the fruits.

 

Antonio Navarro Santafé ( Villena , Alicante , December 22, 1906-id., November 16, 1983) was a Spanish sculptor . On April 24, 1983 he was named Favorite Son of the city of Villena.

 

Born into a humble farming family, he was the seventh child of nine siblings. The family did not have enough money and that is why they had financial problems and to cure his problems, his father and his two older brothers emigrated to Argentina. Some time later, his mother sold the rest of the family assets and, after time, they moved to Madrid in 1913 at Atocha Street , No. 9.

 

In Madrid, from the age of eleven, he had to work to help with the needs of the house. Shortly afterward he went to the studio of the Castellón sculptor José Ortells López , a disciple of Benlliure , and there he made his first sculpture, a head he titled "Peasant". From 1930 he began to carry out important works. He later went to Valencia to the San Carlos School of Fine Arts and then joined the Madrid School of Ceramics as a teacher. Later he was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Madrid and Master Stonemason of the Villa City Council.

 

He suffered from stuttering, which gave him a shy character and little given to creating "social relationships." This earned him a certain dependence on intermediaries who did not always know how to adequately pay for his work or accept modeling jobs for the firms of other sculptors.

 

About this, he himself wrote:

"When I started to get older, having been living in Madrid for years, and I wanted to fight against the tremendous defect that I already noticed was hurting me, I corrected it somewhat by doing respiratory gymnastics; then someone recommended that I read aloud, syllable, and I read I complete Don Quixote in this way, and breathing deeply. At the height of my life I must admit that the use of such a practice that I have always maintained constantly has helped me on occasions, but any physical weakness, any moment or occasion that affected my nerves, made me fall into the abyss of that evil."

 

His mother was his great supporter in following his vocation in sculpture. She entrusted all of her projects and assignments to her mother and she was the one who first saw her work and gave her her opinion on them. Her mother took care of the order and cleanliness of the sculptor's work studio, as well as acting as secretary when necessary. 5 His death in February 1945 in Madrid was an emotional blow for the sculptor.

 

Navarro Santafé was a sculptor who cultivated diverse themes, ranging from the imagery of virgins and saints, in carving and marble, to the portrait bust, in which he achieved sensational achievements, with an exact resemblance to his sitters, both in stone and in bronze.

 

Monument to the Horse. Jerez de la Frontera

1939. Virgin of the Virtues , Patroness of Villena.

1947. Monument to Ruperto Chapí , monument to the music of Villena in his native Villena .

1959. Virgin of Santa María La Blanca for the burial of the Dukes of Marchena , in San Sebastián .

1967. Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree in the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid .

1968. Monument to the Berlin Bear, in the Berlin Park , in Madrid.

1968. Bust of Doctor Lafuente Chaos, at the headquarters of the Medical College of the city of Guadalajara .

1970. Monument to the Horse of Jerez de la Frontera , considered one of his crowning works.

1973. Monument to the Fighting Bull in Puerto de Santa María

1983. Hunting Dream, at the Villena Museum.

 

The Puerta del Sol is a public square in Madrid, one of the best known and busiest places in the city. This is the centre (Km 0) of the radial network of Spanish roads. The square also contains the famous clock whose bells mark the traditional eating of the Twelve Grapes and the beginning of a new year. The New Year's celebration has been broadcast live since 31 December 1962 on major radio and television networks including Atresmedia and RTVE.

 

The Puerta del Sol originated as one of the gates in the city wall that surrounded Madrid in the 15th century. Outside the wall, medieval suburbs began to grow around the Christian Wall of the 12th century. The name of the gate came from the rising sun which decorated the entry, since the gate was oriented to the east.

 

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the area was an important meeting place: as the goal for the couriers coming from abroad and other parts of Spain to the Post Office, it was visited by those eager for the latest news. The stairs to the Saint Philip church at the square were known as the Gradas de San Felipe, and were among the most prolific mentideros de la Corte (this Spanish idiom sounds as "lie-spreaders of the Court", but it is related with the verb mentar, "to say about someone", not mentir, "to lie", so it is more appropriately translated as "places of the City where people gossip").

 

The House of the Post Office was built by French architect Jacques Marquet between 1766 and 1768. The building was the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior and State Security in Francoist Spain. It is currently the seat of the Presidency of the Madrid Community.

 

Sol has seen protests against the March 11th 2004 attacks on commuter trains, and Spain's involvement in the Iraq War . In 2011, the square became established as a focal point and a symbol for the ongoing Spanish democracy demonstrations. The demonstrations included camping in the middle of the plaza (@acampadasol), which began on 15 May 2011 amidst the election campaign for city halls and Autonomous Communities governments and which was fueled by social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook. The demonstrations then spread to more than sixty other cities throughout Spain. Since 12 June 2011, the square has held a free-standing domed structure made from pallets, which served as an information point for the 15-M Movement. This continued throughout the summer of 2011 until the dawn of 2 August, when the national police decided to evict the structure and protestors. Currently, dozens of committees have their assemblies in the iconic square.

 

Despite once being the meeting point of the six major radial roads of Spain, in 2020 the square was pedestrianized and closed to most traffic. Exceptions are made for supplies to shops, emergency services and blood donation campaigns.

 

The Puerta del Sol contains a number of well known sights both domestically and internationally associated with Spain. On the south side, the old Post Office was the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior and State Security in Francoist Spain. The basement of the DGS (Spanish: Dirección General de Seguridad, lit. 'General Directorate of Security') was infamous for being a place where Dissidents to the regime were subjected to torture. The building now serves as the office of the President of Madrid, the head of the regional government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid (not to be confused with the Madrid City Council, which is housed in the Palacio de Cibeles). There are two commemorative plaques in the front of the Royal House of the Post Office: one is devoted to the neighbours of Madrid who rose up against the Napoleonic invasion of Spain on May 2, 1808; the other one is a memorial of the victims of the March 11th, 2004 terrorist attacks.

 

Also on its south side, the square holds a mounted statue of Charles III of Spain, nicknamed "el rey alcalde" ("the mayor-king") due to the extensive public works program he set in motion. The famous Tío Pepe lighted sign was above the square's eastern building between the Calle de Alcalá and the Carrera de San Jerónimo (Apple Store today) for a long time, now is on top of the former Paris Hotel. Also on the east side lies the statue of The Bear and the Strawberry Tree (in Spanish, el Oso y el Madroño), the heraldic symbol of Madrid. Until 2009, the statue stood on the north side at the entrance to Calle del Carmen. The Mariblanca (a female figure named for its white marble) is a copy of a statue (possibly of Venus, and so the restored pedestal claims), which marks the place of a former fountain displaying that figure.

 

The kilómetro cero is a plaque on the ground directly north of the Post Office serving as the symbolic center of Spain, and the point from which kilometer distances are numbered in the Spanish road system.

 

The Puerta is located in the very heart of Madrid. It serves as the kilometre zero from which all radial roads in Spain are measured. This is demonstrated by a plaque on the floor of the square, marking the exact point of Km.0. This was established in 1857, setting six major radial roads, clockwise:

 

N-1 (Northern Road) to Irun, border town with France, via Burgos, starting from Calle Montera and continuing through Calle de Fuencarral and Calle de Bravo Murillo

N-2 (Northeastern Road) to La Jonquera, border town with France, via Zaragoza and Barcelona, starting from Calle de Alcalá

N-3 (Eastern Road) to Valencia, starting from Carrera de San Jerónimo, where the Congress of Deputies is located, and continuing through Paseo del Prado

N-4 (Southern Road) to Córdoba, Seville and Cádiz, starting from Calle Carretas, Calle Concepción Jerónima and Calle de Toledo

N-5 (Southwestern Road) to Badajoz, border town with Portugal, starting from Calle Mayor

N-6 (Northwestern Road) to A Coruña, starting from Calle Preciados, continuing through Gran Vía and Calle de la Princesa

The old plaque was replaced in 2009, as it had become faded after years of foot traffic. It is also the reference for street numbers in Madrid, which begin at the street-end that is closest to Puerta del Sol.

 

Immediately to the southwest lies the Plaza Mayor; the Palacio Real, the official home of the Royal Family, is further west. Parliament and the museum district are to the east and the train station Atocha is to the southeast.

 

Under the square lies a public transport hub served by lines 1, 2 and 3 of the Madrid Metro. A commuter service was inaugurated on 27 June 2009, four years behind schedule. The lateness of the construction was in part due to the discovery of the remains of the Church of Our Lady of Good Success during the excavation of the main chamber. The new station connects the Puerta to Madrid's commuter rail system and, by extension, to Spain's railroads via direct connections to Atocha and Chamartín railway stations.

 

The square connects several commercial and recreational areas together, and thus both it and the surrounding streets consist mainly of shopping establishments catering to locals and tourists alike, like the several El Corte Inglés department store buildings in Preciados Street, La Mallorquina cafe, and numerous, ever-changing restaurants. The area remains active late into the night and early morning since nearby bars and dance clubs often only start entertainment at 1 am. Street music is also common in the area.

 

Side streets close to the square also contain residential flats, some small offices, and tourist hostels.

 

During New Year's Eve 2018–2019, the clock of the Puerta del Sol for the first time in history rang the bells according to the schedule of the Canary Islands. After the traditional twelve strokes of midnight, the clock delayed one hour its needles to adjust to the Canary hour and also gave the chimes at the same time as this archipelago.

 

Madrid is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its monocentric metropolitan area is the second-largest in the EU. The municipality covers 604.3 km2 (233.3 sq mi) geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about 650 meters above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid (since 1983), it is also the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country. The climate of Madrid features hot summers and cool winters.

 

The Madrid urban agglomeration has the second-largest GDP in the European Union and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, environment, media, fashion, science, culture, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. Due to its economic output, high standard of living, and market size, Madrid is considered the major financial centre and the leading economic hub of the Iberian Peninsula and of Southern Europe. The metropolitan area hosts major Spanish companies such as Telefónica, Iberia, BBVA and FCC. It concentrates the bulk of banking operations in the country and it is the Spanish-speaking city generating the largest amount of webpages. For innovation, Madrid is ranked 19th in the world and 7th in Europe from 500 cities, in the 2022–2023 annual analysts Innovation Cities Index, published by 2ThinkNow.

 

Madrid houses the headquarters of the UN's World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), and the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB). It also hosts major international regulators and promoters of the Spanish language: the Standing Committee of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, headquarters of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Instituto Cervantes and the Foundation of Urgent Spanish (FundéuRAE). Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI and the Madrid Fashion Week. Madrid is home to two world-famous football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.

 

While Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Its landmarks include the Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace of Madrid; the Royal Theatre with its restored 1850 Opera House; the Buen Retiro Park, founded in 1631; the 19th-century National Library building (founded in 1712) containing some of Spain's historical archives; many national museums, and the Golden Triangle of Art, located along the Paseo del Prado and comprising three art museums: Prado Museum, the Reina Sofía Museum, a museum of modern art, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which complements the holdings of the other two museums. Cibeles Palace and Fountain has become one of the monument symbols of the city. The mayor is José Luis Martínez-Almeida from the People's Party.

 

The documented history of Madrid dates to the 9th century, even though the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The primitive nucleus of Madrid, a walled military outpost in the left bank of the Manzanares, dates back to the second half of the 9th century, during the rule of the Emirate of Córdoba. Conquered by Christians in 1083 or 1085, Madrid consolidated in the Late Middle Ages as a middle to upper-middle rank town of the Crown of Castile. The development of Madrid as administrative centre began when the court of the Hispanic Monarchy was settled in the town in 1561.

 

The primitive urban nucleus of Madrid (Majriṭ) was founded in the late 9th century (from 852 to 886) as a citadel erected on behalf of Muhammad I, the Cordobese emir, on the relatively steep left bank of the Manzanares. Originally it was largely a military outpost for the quartering of troops. Similarly to other fortresses north of the Tagus, Madrid made it difficult to muster reinforcements from the Asturian kingdom to the unruly inhabitants of Toledo, prone to rebellion against the Umayyad rule. Extending across roughly 8 ha, Muslim Madrid consisted of the alcázar and the wider walled citadel (al-Mudayna) with the addition of some housing outside the walls. By the late 10th century, Majriṭ was an important borderland military stronghold territory with great strategic value, owing to its proximity to Toledo. The most generous estimates for the 10th century tentatively and intuitively put the number of inhabitants of the 9 ha settlement at 2,000. The model of repopulation is likely to have been by the Limitanei, characteristic of the borderlands.

 

The settlement is mentioned in the work of the 10th-century Cordobese chronicler Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Razi, with the latter locating the Castle of Madrid within the district of Guadalajara. After the Christian conquest, in the first half of the 12th century Al-Idrisi described Madrid as a "small city and solid fortress, well populated. In the age of Islam, it had a small mosque where the khuṭbah was always delivered," and placed it in the province of the sierra, "al-Sārrāt". It was ascribed by most post-Christian conquest Muslim commentators, including Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, to Toledo. This may tentatively suggest that the settlement, part of the cora of Guadalajara according to al-Razi, could have been transferred to Toledo following the Fitna of al-Andalus.

 

The city passed to Christian control in the context of the conquest of Toledo; historiography debates whether if the event took place in 1083, before the conquest of Toledo, in the wake of negotiations between Alfonso VI and al-Qadir, or afterwards, as a direct consequence of the seizure of Toledo in 1085.

 

The mosque was reconsecrated as the church of the Virgin of Almudena (almudin, the garrison's granary). The society in the 11th and 12th centuries was structured around knight-villeins as a leading class in the local public, social and economic life. The town had a Muslim and mozarabic preexisting population (a number of the former would remain in the town after the conquest while the later community would remain very large throughout the high middle ages before merging with the new settlers). The town was further repopulated by settlers with a dominant Castilian-Leonese extraction. Frank settlers were a minority but influential community. The Jewish community was probably smaller in number than the mudéjar one, standing out as physicians up until their expulsion. By the end of the middle ages, the best-positioned members of the mudéjar community were the alarifes ('master builders'), who were tasked with public works (including the management of the viajes de agua), and had a leading role in the urbanism of the town in the 15th century.

 

Since the mid-13th century and up to the late 14th century, the concejo of Madrid vied for the control of the Real de Manzanares territory against the concejo of Segovia, a powerful town north of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, characterised by its repopulating prowess and its husbandry-based economy, contrasted by the agricultural and less competent in repopulation town of Madrid. After the decline of Sepúlveda, another concejo north of the mountain range, Segovia had become a major actor south of the Guadarrama mountains, expanding across the Lozoya and Manzanares rivers to the north of Madrid and along the Guadarrama river course to its west.

 

The society of Madrid before the 15th century was an agriculture-based one (prevailing over livestock), featuring a noteworthy number of irrigated crops.[16] Two important industries were those of the manufacturing of building materials and leather.

 

John I of Castile gifted Leo V of Armenia the lordship of Madrid together with those of Villa Real and Andújar in 1383. The Madrilenian concejo made sure that the privilege of lordship did not become hereditary, also presumably receiving a non-sale privilege guaranteeing never again to be handed over by the Crown to a lord.

 

Later, Henry III of Castile (1379–1406) rebuilt the town after it was destroyed by fire, and he founded El Pardo just outside its walls.

 

During the 15th century, the town became one of the preferred locations of the monarchs of the Trastámara dynasty, namely John II of Castile and Henry IV of Castile (Madrid was the town in which the latter spent more time and eventually died). Among the appeals the town offered, aside from the abundant game in the surroundings, the strategic location and the closed link between the existing religious sites and the monarchy, the imposing alcázar frequently provided a safe for the Royal Treasure. The town briefly hosted a medieval mint, manufacturing coins from 1467 to 1471. Madrid would also become a frequent seat of the court during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, spending reportedly more than 1000 days in the town, including a 8-month long uninterrupted spell.

 

By the end of the Middle Ages, Madrid was placed as middle to upper-middle rank town of the Castilian urban network in terms of population. The town also enjoyed a vote at the Cortes of Castile (one out of 18) and housed many hermitages and hospitals.

 

Facing the 1492 decree of expulsion, few local Jews opted for leaving, with most preferring to convert instead, remaining as a non-fully assimilated converso community, subject to rejection by Old Christians. Likewise, adoption of Christianism by the mudéjar community facing the 1502 pragmatic law of forced conversion was also widespread. Seeking to protect its economic interests, the council actively promoted assimilation in the latter case by awarding tax and economic benefits, and gifts.

 

The 1520–21 Revolt of the Comuneros succeeded in Madrid, as, following contacts with the neighbouring city of Toledo, the comunero rebels deposed the corregidor, named Antonio de Astudillo, by 17 June 1520. Juan Zapata and Pedro de Montemayor found themselves among the most uncompromising supporters of the comunero cause in Madrid, with the former becoming the captain of the local militias while the later was captured by royalists and executed by late 1520. The end of revolt came through a negotiation, though, and another two of the leading figures of the uprising (the Bachelor Castillo and Juan Negrete) went unpunished.

 

Philip II (1527–1598), moved the court to Madrid in 1561. Although he made no official declaration, the seat of the court became the de facto capital. Unlikely to have more than 20,000 inhabitants by the time, the city grew approaching the 100,000 mark by the end of the 16th century. The population plummeted (reportedly reduced to a half) during the 5-year period the capital was set in Valladolid (1601–1606), with estimations of roughly 50–60,000 people leaving the city. The move (often framed in modern usage as a case of real estate speculation) was promoted by the valido of Philip III, Duke of Lerma, who had previously acquired many properties in Valladolid. Madrid undertook a mammoth cultural and economic crisis and the decimation of the price of housing ensued. Lerma acquired then cheap real estate in Madrid, and suggested the King to move back the capital to Madrid. The king finally accepted the additional 250,000 ducats offered by the town of Madrid in order to help financing the move of the royal court back to Madrid.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid had a estate-based society. The nobility, a quantitatively large group, swarmed around the royal court. The ecclesial hierarchy, featuring a nobiliary extraction, shared with the nobility the echelon of the Madrilenian society. The lower clergy, featuring a humble extraction, usually had a rural background, although clerics regular often required certifications of limpieza de sangre if not hidalguía. There were plenty of civil servants, who enjoyed considerable social prestige. There was a comparatively small number of craftsmen, traders and goldsmiths. Domestic staff was also common with servants such as pages, squires, butlers and also slaves (owned as symbol of social status). And lastly at the lowest end, there were homeless people, unemployed immigrants, and discharged soldiers and deserters.

 

During the 17th century, Madrid grew rapidly. The royal court attracted many of Spain's leading artists and writers to Madrid, including Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Velázquez during the so-called cultural Siglo de Oro.

 

By the end of the Ancient Regime, Madrid hosted a slave population, tentatively estimated to range from 6,000 to 15,000 out of total population larger than 150,000. Unlike the case of other Spanish cities, during the 18th century the slave population in Madrid was unbalanced in favour of males over females.

 

In 1739 Philip V began constructing new palaces, including the Palacio Real de Madrid. Under Charles III (1716–1788) that Madrid became a truly modern city. Charles III, who cleaned up the city and its government, became one of the most popular kings to rule Madrid, and the saying "the best mayor, the king" became widespread. Besides completing the Palacio Real, Charles III is responsible for many of Madrid's finest buildings and monuments, including the Prado and the Puerta de Alcalá.

 

Amid one of the worst subsistence crises of the Bourbon monarchy, the installation of news lanterns for the developing street lighting system—part of the new modernization policies of the Marquis of Esquilache, the new Sicilian minister—led to an increase on oil prices. This added to an increasing tax burden imposed on a populace already at the brink of famine.[42] In this context, following the enforcing of a ban of the traditional Spanish dress (long cape and a wide-brimmed hat) in order to facilitate the identification of criminal suspects, massive riots erupted in March 1766 in Madrid, the so-called "Mutiny of Esquilache".

 

During the second half of the 18th century, the increasing number of carriages brought a collateral increment of pedestrian accidents, forcing the authorities to take measures against traffic, limiting the number of animals per carriage (in order to reduce speed) and eventually decreeing the full ban of carriages in the city (1787).

 

On 27 October 1807, Charles IV and Napoleon signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which allowed French troops passage through Spanish territory to join Spanish troops and invade Portugal, which had refused to obey the order for an international blockade against England. In February 1808, Napoleon used the excuse that the blockade against England was not being respected at Portuguese ports to send a powerful army under his brother-in-law, General Joachim Murat. Contrary to the treaty, French troops entered via Catalonia, occupying the plazas along the way. Thus, throughout February and March 1808, cities such as Barcelona and Pamplona remained under French rule.

 

While all this was happening, the Mutiny of Aranjuez (17 March 1808) took place, led by Charles IV's own son, crown prince Ferdinand, and directed against him. Charles IV resigned and Ferdinand took his place as King Ferdinand VII. In May 1808, Napoleon's troops entered the city. On 2 May 1808 (Spanish: Dos de Mayo), the Madrileños revolted against the French forces, whose brutal behavior would have a lasting impact on French rule in Spain and France's image in Europe in general. Thus, Ferdinand VII returned to a city that had been occupied by Murat.

 

Both the king and his father became virtual prisoners of the French army. Napoleon, taking advantage of the weakness of the Bourbons, forced both, first the father and then the son, to meet him at Bayonne, where Ferdinand VII arrived on 20 April. Here Napoleon forced both kings to abdicate on 5 May, handing the throne to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.

 

On 2 May, the crowd began to concentrate at the Palacio Real and watched as the French soldiers removed the royal family members from the palace. On seeing the infante Francisco de Paula struggling with his captor, the crowd launched an assault on the carriages, shouting ¡Que se lo llevan! (They're taking him away from us!). French soldiers fired into the crowd. The fighting lasted for hours and is reflected in Goya's painting, The Second of May 1808, also known as The Charge of the Mamelukes.

 

Meanwhile, the Spanish military remained garrisoned and passive. Only the artillery barracks at Monteleón under Captain Luis Daoíz y Torres, manned by four officers, three NCOs and ten men, resisted. They were later reinforced by a further 33 men and two officers led by Pedro Velarde y Santillán, and distributed weapons to the civilian population. After repelling a first attack under French General Lefranc, both Spanish commanders died fighting heroically against reinforcements sent by Murat. Gradually, the pockets of resistance fell. Hundreds of Spanish men and women and French soldiers were killed in this skirmish.

 

On 12 August 1812, following the defeat of the French forces at Salamanca, English and Portuguese troops entered Madrid and surrounded the fortified area occupied by the French in the district of Retiro. Following two days of Siege warfare, the 1,700 French surrendered and a large store of arms, 20,000 muskets and 180 cannon, together with many other supplies were captured, along with two French Imperial Eagles.

 

"In the early years of this century, Madrid was a very ugly town, with few architectural monuments, with horrible housing."

 

Antonio Alcalá Galiano. Recuerdos de un anciano.

 

On 29 October, Hill received Wellington's positive order to abandon Madrid and march to join him. After a clash with Soult's advance guard at Perales de Tajuña on the 30th, Hill broke contact and withdrew in the direction of Alba de Tormes. Joseph re-entered his capital on 2 November.

 

After the war of independence Ferdinand VII returned to the throne (1814). The projects of reform by Joseph Bonaparte were abandoned; during the Fernandine period, despite the proposal of several architectural projects for the city, the lack of ability to finance those led to works often being postponed or halted.

 

After a liberal military revolution, Colonel Riego made the king swear to respect the Constitution. Liberal and conservative government thereafter alternated, ending with the enthronement of Isabella II.

 

At the time the reign of Isabella II started, the city was still enclosed behind its walls, featuring a relatively slow demographic growth as well as very high population density. After the 1833 administrative reforms for the country devised by Javier de Burgos (including the configuration of the current province of Madrid), Madrid was to become the capital of the new liberal state.

 

Madrid experienced substantial changes during the 1830s. The corregimiento and the corregidor (institutions from the Ancien Regime) were ended for good, giving rise to the constitutional alcalde in the context of the liberal transformations. Purged off from Carlist elements, the civil office and the military and palatial milieus recognised legitimacy to the dynastic rights of Isabella II.

 

The reforms enacted by Finance Minister Juan Álvarez Mendizábal in 1835–1836 led to the confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and the subsequent demolition of churches, convents and adjacent orchards in the city (similarly to other Spanish cities); the widening of streets and squares ensued.

 

In 1854, amid economic and political crisis, following the pronunciamiento of group of high officers commanded by Leopoldo O'Donnell garrisoned in the nearby town of Vicálvaro in June 1854 (the so-called "Vicalvarada"), the 7 July Manifesto of Manzanares, calling for popular rebellion, and the ousting of Luis José Sartorius from the premiership on 17 July, popular mutiny broke out in Madrid, asking for a real change of system, in what it was to be known as the Revolution of 1854. With the uprising in Madrid reaching its pinnacle on 17, 18 and 19 July, the rebels, who erected barricades in the streets, were bluntly crushed by the new government.

 

1858 was a marked year for the city with the arrival of the waters from the Lozoya. The Canal de Isabel II was inaugurated on 24 June 1858. A ceremony took place soon after in Calle Ancha de San Bernardo to celebrate it, unveiling a 30-metre-high water source in the middle of the street.

 

The plan for the Ensanche de Madrid ('widening of Madrid') by Carlos María de Castro was passed through a royal decree issued on 19 July 1860. The plan for urban expansion by Castro, a staunch Conservative, delivered a segregation of the well-off class, the middle class and the artisanate into different zones. The southern part of the Ensanche was at a disadvantage with respect to the rest of the Ensanche, insofar, located on the way to the river and at a lower altitude, it was a place of passage for the sewage runoff, thereby being described as a "space of urban degradation and misery". Beyond the Ensanches, slums and underclass neighborhoods were built in suburbs such as Tetuán, Prosperidad or Vallecas.

 

Student unrest took place in 1865 following the ministerial decree against the expression of ideas against the monarchy and the church and the forced removal of the rector of the Universidad Central, unwilling to submit. In a crescendo of protests, the night of 10 April 2,000 protesters clashed against the civil guard. The unrest was crudely quashed, leaving 14 deaths, 74 wounded students and 114 arrests (in what became known as the "Night of Saint Daniel"), becoming the precursor of more serious revolutionary attempts.

 

The Glorious Revolution resulting in the deposition of Queen Isabella II started with a pronunciamiento in the bay of Cádiz in September 1868. The success of the uprising in Madrid on 29 September prompted the French exile of the queen, who was on holiday in San Sebastián and was unable to reach the capital by train. General Juan Prim, the leader of the liberal progressives, was received by the Madrilenian people at his arrival to the city in early October in a festive mood. He pronounced his famous speech of the "three nevers" directed against the Bourbons, and delivered a highly symbolical hug to General Serrano, leader of the revolutionary forces triumphant in the 28 September battle of Alcolea, in the Puerta del Sol.

 

On 27 December 1870 the car in which General Prim, the prime minister, was travelling, was shot by unknown hit-men in the Turk Street, nearby the Congress of Deputies. Prim, wounded in the attack, died three days later, with the elected monarch Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, yet to swear the constitution.

 

The creation of the Salamanca–Sol–Pozas tram service in Madrid in 1871 meant the introduction of the first collective system of transportation in the city, predating the omnibus.

 

The economy of the city further modernized during the second half of the 19th century, consolidating its status as a service and financial centre. New industries were mostly focused in book publishing, construction and low-tech sectors. The introduction of railway transport greatly helped Madrid's economic prowess, and led to changes in consumption patterns (such as the substitution of salted fish for fresh fish from the Spanish coasts) as well as further strengthening the city's role as a logistics node in the country's distribution network.

 

The late 19th century saw the introduction of the electric power distribution. As by law, the city council could not concede an industrial monopoly to any company, the city experienced a huge competition among the companies in the electricity sector. The absence of a monopoly led to an overlapping of distribution networks, to the point that in the centre of Madrid 5 different networks could travel through the same street. Electric lighting in the streets was introduced in the 1890s.

 

By the end of the 19th century, the city featured access to water, a central status in the rail network, a cheap workforce and access to financial capital. With the onset of the new century, the Ensanche Sur (in the current day district of Arganzuela) started to grow to become the main industrial area of the municipality along the first half of the 20th century.

 

In the early 20th century Madrid undertook a major urban intervention in its city centre with the creation of the Gran Vía, a monumental thoroughfare (then divided in three segments with different names) whose construction slit the city from top to bottom with the demolition of multitude of housing and small streets. Anticipated in earlier projects, and following the signature of the contract, the works formally started in April 1910 with a ceremony led by King Alfonso XIII.

 

Also with the turn of the century, Madrid had become the cultural capital of Spain as centre of top knowledge institutions (the Central University, the Royal Academies, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza or the Ateneo de Madrid), also concentrating the most publishing houses and big daily newspapers, amounting for the bulk of the intellectual production in the country.

 

In 1919 the Madrid Metro (known as the Ferrocarril Metropolitano by that time) inaugurated its first service, which went from Sol to the Cuatro Caminos area.

 

In the 1919–1920 biennium Madrid witnessed the biggest wave of protests seen in the city up to that date, being the centre of innumerable strikes; despite being still surpassed by Barcelona's, the industrial city par excellence in that time, this cycle decisively set the foundations for the social unrest that took place in the 1930s in the city.

 

The situation the monarchy had left Madrid in 1931 was catastrophic, with tens of thousands of kids receiving no education and a huge rate of unemployment.

 

After the proclamation of the Second Republic on 14 April 1931 the citizens of Madrid understood the free access to the Casa de Campo (until then an enclosed property with exclusive access for the royalty), was a consequence of the fall of the monarchy, and informally occupied the area on 15 April. After the signing of a decree on 20 April which granted the area to the Madrilenian citizens in order to become a "park for recreation and instruction", the transfer was formally sealed on 6 May when Minister Indalecio Prieto formally delivered the Casa de Campo to Mayor Pedro Rico. The Spanish Constitution of 1931 was the first legislating on the state capital, setting it explicitly in Madrid. During the 1930s, Madrid enjoyed "great vitality"; it was demographically young, but also young in the sense of its relation with the modernity. During this time the prolongation of the Paseo de la Castellana towards the north was projected. The proclamation of the Republic slowed down the building of new housing. The tertiary sector gave thrust to the economy. Illiteracy rates were down to below 20%, and the city's cultural life grew notably during the so-called Silver Age of Spanish culture; the sales of newspaper also increased. Anti-clericalism and Catholicism lived side by side in Madrid; the burning of convents initiated after riots in the city in May 1931 worsened the political environment. The 1934 insurrection largely failed in Madrid.

 

In order to deal with the unemployment, the new Republican city council hired many jobless people as gardeners and street cleaners.

 

Prieto, who sought to turn the city into the "Great Madrid", capital of the Republic, charged Secundino Zuazo with the project for the opening of a south–north axis in the city through the northward enlargement of the Paseo de la Castellana and the construction of the Nuevos Ministerios administrative complex in the area (halted by the Civil War, works in the Nuevos Ministerios would finish in 1942). Works on the Ciudad Universitaria, already started during the monarchy in 1929, also resumed.

 

The military uprising of July 1936 was defeated in Madrid by a combination of loyal forces and workers' militias. On 20 July armed workers and loyal troops stormed the single focus of resistance, the Cuartel de La Montaña, defended by a contingent of 2,000 rebel soldiers accompanied by 500 falangists under the command of General Fanjul, killing over one hundred of rebels after their surrender. Aside from the Cuartel de la Montaña episode, the wider scheme for the coup in the capital largely failed both due to disastrous rebel planning and due to the Government delivering weapons to the people wanting to defend the Republic, with the city becoming a symbol of popular resistance, "the people in arms".

 

After the quelling of the coup d'état, from 1936–1939, Madrid remained under the control of forces loyal to the Republic. Following the seemingly unstoppable advance towards Madrid of rebel land troops, the first air bombings on Madrid also started. Immediately after the bombing of the nearing airports of Getafe and Cuatro Vientos, Madrid proper was bombed for the first time in the night of the 27–28 August 1936 by a Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju 52 that threw several bombs on the Ministry of War and the Station of the North. Madrid "was to become the first big European city to be bombed by aviation".

 

Rebel General Francisco Franco, recently given the supreme military command over his faction, took a detour in late September to "liberate" the besieged Alcázar de Toledo. Meanwhile, this operation gave time to the republicans in Madrid to build defenses and start receiving some foreign support.

 

The summer and autumn of 1936 saw the Republican Madrid witness of heavy-handed repression by communist and socialist groups, symbolised by the murder of prisoners in checas and sacas directed mostly against military personnel and leading politicians linked to the rebels, which, culminated by the horrific Paracuellos massacres in the context of a simultaneous major rebel offensive against the city, were halted by early December. Madrid, besieged from October 1936, saw a major offensive in its western suburbs in November of that year.

 

In the last weeks of the war, the collapse of the republic was speeded by Colonel Segismundo Casado, who, endorsed by some political figures such as Anarchist Cipriano Mera and Julián Besteiro, a PSOE leader who had held talks with the Falangist fifth column in the city, threw a military coup against the legitimate government under the pretext of excessive communist preponderance, propelling a mini-civil war in Madrid that, won by the casadistas, left roughly 2,000 casualties between 5–10 March 1939.

 

The city fell to the nationalists on 28 March 1939.

 

Following the onset of the Francoist dictatorship in the city, the absence of personal and associative freedoms and the heavy-hand repression of people linked to a republican past greatly deprived the city from social mobilization, trade unionism and intellectual life. This added to a climate of general shortage, with ration coupons rampant and a lingering autarchic economy lasting until the mid 1950s. Meat and fish consumption was scarce in Post-War Madrid, and starvation and lack of proteins were a cause of high mortality.

 

With the country ruined after the war, the Falange command had nonetheless high plans for the city and professionals sympathetic to the regime dreamed (based on an organicist conception) about the notion of building a body for the "Spanish greatness" placing a great emphasis in Madrid, what they thought to be the imperial capital of the New State. In this sense, urban planners sought to highlight and symbolically put in value the façade the city offered to the Manzanares River, the "Imperial Cornice", bringing projects to accompany the Royal Palace such as the finishing of the unfinished cathedral (with the start of works postponed to 1950 and ultimately finished in the late 20th century), a never-built "house of the Party" and many others. Nonetheless these delusions of grandeur caught up with reality and the scarcity during the Post-War and most of the projects ended up either filed, unfinished or mutilated, with the single clear success being the Gutiérrez Soto's Cuartel del Ejército del Aire.

 

The intense demographic growth experienced by the city via mass immigration from the rural areas of the country led to the construction of plenty of housing in the peripheral areas of the city to absorb the new population (reinforcing the processes of social polarization of the city), initially comprising substandard housing (with as many as 50,000 shacks scattered around the city by 1956). A transitional planning intended to temporarily replace the shanty towns were the poblados de absorción, introduced since the mid-1950s in locations such as Canillas, San Fermín, Caño Roto, Villaverde, Pan Bendito [es], Zofío and Fuencarral, aiming to work as a sort of "high-end" shacks (with the destinataries participating in the construction of their own housing) but under the aegis of a wider coordinated urban planning.

 

Together with the likes of Cairo, Santiago de Chile, Rome, Buenos Aires or Lisbon, Francoist Madrid became an important transnational hub of the global Neofascist network that facilitated the survival and resumption of (neo)fascist activities after 1945.

 

In the 1948–1954 period the municipality greatly increased in size through the annexation of 13 surrounding municipalities, as its total area went up from 68,42 km2 to 607,09 km2. The annexed municipalities were Chamartín de la Rosa (5 June 1948), Carabanchel Alto (29 April 1948), Carabanchel Bajo (29 April 1948), Canillas (30 March 1950), Canillejas (30 March 1950), Hortaleza (31 March 1950), Barajas (31 March 1950), Vallecas (22 December 1950), El Pardo (27 March 1951), Vicálvaro (20 October 1951), Fuencarral (20 October 1951) Aravaca (20 October 1951) and Villaverde (31 July 1954).

 

The population of the city peaked in 1975 at 3,228,057 inhabitants.

 

Benefiting from prosperity in the 1980s, Spain's capital city has consolidated its position as the leading economic, cultural, industrial, educational and technological center of the Iberian peninsula. The relative decline in population since 1975 reverted in the 1990s, with the city recovering a population of roughly 3 million inhabitants by the end of the 20th century.

 

Since the late 1970s and through the 1980s Madrid became the center of the cultural movement known as la Movida. Conversely, just like in the rest of the country, a heroin crisis took a toll in the poor neighborhoods of Madrid in the 1980s.

 

On 11 March 2004, three days before Spain's general elections and exactly 2 years and 6 months after the September 11 attacks in the US, Madrid was hit by a terrorist attack when Islamic terrorists belonging to an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell placed a series of bombs on several trains during the morning rush hour, killing 191 people and injuring 1,800.

 

The administrations that followed Álvarez del Manzano's, also conservative, led by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and Ana Botella, launched three unsuccessful bids for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. Madrid was a centre of the anti-austerity protests that erupted in Spain in 2011. As consequence of the spillover of the 2008 financial and mortgage crisis, Madrid has been affected by the increasing number of second-hand homes held by banks and house evictions. The mandate of left-wing Mayor Manuela Carmena (2015–2019) delivered the renaturalization of the course of the Manzanares across the city.

 

Since the late 2010s, the challenges the city faces include the increasingly unaffordable rental prices (often in parallel with the gentrification and the spike of tourist apartments in the city centre) and the profusion of betting shops in working-class areas, equalled to an "epidemics" among the young people.

I was gonna wait and post this pair of photos closer to the Christmas seaso, which actually begins on December 23, in my estimation), but since the Vintage Christmas 1945-1970 group is featured on Metafilter just now, I'll put them up today and shoot for my fifteen minutes of fame.

This species is a native of most parts of Europe, in moist meadows, watery places, by the sides of ditches, brooks and rivers, growing in masses and frequently overrunning large tracts of land on account of its creeping underground stems.

 

The Common Fleabane is nearly related to elecampane and other species of Inula.

 

This plant has medicinal properties, and though in England it has never had much reputation as a curative agent it has ranked high in the estimation of herbalists abroad.

 

It was formerly used in dysentery, and on this account received its specific name from Linnaeus, who in his Flora Suecia says that he had been informed by General Keit, of the Russian Army, that his soldiers, in one of their expeditions against Persia, were cured of dysentery by means of this plant.

 

Our old authors call it 'Middle Fleabane' - Ploughman's Spikenard being the Great Fleabane; both names being derived from the fact that, if burnt, the smoke from them drives away fleas and other insects.

 

The generic name, Pulicaria, refers to this property, the Latin name for the flea being Pulex.

I'm sure everyone in the NW is getting burned out on the depressing weather. I have never experienced such a cold, wet, gray spring as far as I can remember. The flowers in southern Oregon are almost a month behind but as they begin to appear some are showing to be a bumper crop. Such is the case with the lupine in the Shasta Valley. Last week I managed one clear morning (too clear, but not complaining) that wasn't also windy. There's nothing quite like back lit lupine in my estimation. As the sun was rising I shot a bunch of similar compositions, but I think this is turning out to be my favorite so far. This is a blend of four different exposure values for dynamic range and two focal points for dof. I really like achieving infinite depth of field in close foreground images like this.

 

Canon 5DII, 16-35mm f/2.8 L, polarizer, four exposures 1/4 to 1/15 second @ f/16, ISO 200, two focal points near 22mm

Pseudoneoponera rufipes

 

Empilements de 125 photos de 41 µm/step en mode manuel 65mm - f/2,8 - 1,6” - ISO 100 - rapport 4:1

Boitier Canon EOS 5D Mark IV + Objectif Canon MP-E 65 mm f/2,8 1:1 ~ 5:1 + lumière au‐dessus LED diffusée + rail macro motorisé et contrôleur Cognisys Stackshot 3X.

Logiciel de stacking : ZereneStacker (DMap estimation radius 3/smoothing radius 2 - contrast treshold 73%).

Post traitement : ZereneStacker, Lightroom, Photoshop.

I began the Kent church project back in 2008, and Barham was one of the first dozen I visited. I took a few shots, and from then I remember the window showing a very fine St George and a balcony from where the bells are rung giving great views down the church.

 

I have not stepped foot inside a Kent church since the end of September, and so I felt I needed to get back into it, as the orchid season is possibly just four months away, and then I will be lost for months.

 

Barham is like an old friend; it lies on a short cut from the A2 to the Elham Valley, so I pass down here many times a year, zig-zaggin at its western end as the road heads down towards the Nailbourne.

 

You can see the spire from the A2, nestling in the valley below, and yet being so close to a main road, the lane that winds it way through the timber framed and clapboard houses is wide enough to allow just one car to pass at a time.

 

Unusually, there is plentiful parking on the south side of the church, and from there there is a great view of the southern face of the church with its magnificent spire.

 

As hoped, it was open, and the church has so much more than I remember from what, eight years back.

 

Rows of modern chairs have replaced pews, but it looks good like thet. The church has a good collection of Victorian glass, some better than others, and there is that St George window at the western end of the north wall.

 

------------------------------------------

 

A long and light church, best viewed from the south. Like nearby Ickham it is cruciform in plan, with a west rather than central, tower. Sometimes this is the result of a later tower being added, but here it is an early feature indeed, at least the same age (if not earlier) than the body of the church. Lord Kitchener lived in the parish, so his name appears on the War Memorial. At the west end of the south aisle, tucked out of the way, is the memorial to Sir Basil Dixwell (d 1750). There are two twentieth century windows by Martin Travers. The 1925 east window shows Our Lady and Child beneath the typical Travers Baroque Canopy. Under the tower, affixed to the wall, are some Flemish tiles, purchased under the will of John Digge who died in 1375. His memorial brass survives in the Vestry.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Barham

 

------------------------------------------

 

Many churches in Kent are well known for their yew trees but St. John the Baptist at Barham is noteworthy for its magnificent beech trees.

 

The Church guide suggests that there has been a Church here since the 9th Century but the present structure was probably started in the 12th Century although Syms, in his book about Kent Country Churches, states that there is a hint of possible Norman construction at the base of the present tower. The bulk of the Church covers the Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular periods of building. Many of the huge roof beams, ties and posts are original 14th Century as are the three arches leading into the aisle..

 

In the Northwest corner is a small 13th Century window containing modern glass depicting St. George slaying the dragon and dedicated to the 23rd Signal Company. The Church also contains a White Ensign which was presented to it by Viscount Broome, a local resident. The Ensign was from 'H.M.S. Raglan' which was also commanded by Viscount Broome. The ship was sunk in January, 1918 by the German light cruiser 'Breslau'.

 

The walls contain various mural tablets. Hanging high on the west wall is a helmet said to have belonged to Sir Basil Dixwell of Broome Park. The helmet probably never saw action but was carried at his funeral.

 

The floor in the north transept is uneven because some years ago three brasses were found there. According to popular medieval custom engraved metal cut-outs were sunk into indented stone slabs and secured with rivets and pitch. In order to save them from further damage the brasses were lifted and placed on the walls. The oldest dates from about 1370 is of a civilian but very mutilated. The other two are in good condition and dated about 1460. One is of a woman wearing the dress of a widow which was similar to a nun. The other is of a bare headed man in plate armour. These are believed to be of John Digges and his wife Joan.

 

At the west end of the church is a list of Rectors and Priests-in-Charge - the first being Otho Caputh in 1280. Notice should be made of Richard Hooker (1594), the author of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The tiles incorporated into the wall were originally in place in the Chancel about 1375. They were left by John Digges whose Will instructed that he was to be buried in the Chancel and "my executors are to buy Flanders tiles to pave the said Chancel".

 

The 14th century font is large enough to submerse a baby - as would have been the custom of the time. The bowl is octagonal representing the first day of the new week, the day of Christ's resurrection. The cover is Jacobean.

 

The Millennium Window in the South Transept was designed and constructed by Alexandra Le Rossignol and was dedicated in July 2001. The cost of the project (approximately £6,500) was raised locally with the first donation being made by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey.

 

The porch contains two wooden plaques listing the names of men from the village who were killed in the Great Wars - among them being Field Marshall Lord Kitchener of Broome Park.

 

www.barham-kent.org.uk/landmark_church.htm

 

-----------------------------------------

 

ANTIENTLY written Bereham, lies the next parish eastward. There are five boroughs in it, viz. of Buxton, Outelmeston, Derrington, Breach, and Shelving. The manor of Bishopsborne claims over almost the whole of this parish, at the court of which the four latter borsholders are chosen, and the manors of Reculver and Adisham over a small part of it.

 

BARHAM is situated at the confines of that beautiful country heretofore described, the same Nailbourne valley running through it, near which, in like manner the land is very fertile, but all the rest of it is a chalky barren soil. On the rise of the hill northward from it, is the village called Barham-street, with the church, and just beyond the summit of it, on the further side Barham court, having its front towards the downs, over part of which this parish extends, and gives name to them. At the foot of the same hill, further eastward, is the mansion of Brome, with its adjoining plantatious, a conspicuous object from the downs, to which by inclosing a part of them, the grounds extend as far as the Dover road, close to Denne-hill, and a costly entrance has been erected into them there. By the corner of Brome house the road leads to the left through Denton-street, close up to which this parish extends, towards Folkestone; and to the right, towards Eleham and Hythe. One this road, within the bounds of this parish, in a chalky and stony country, of poor barren land, there is a large waste of pasture, called Breach down, on which there are a number of tumuli, or barrows. By the road side there have been found several skeletons, one of which had round its neck a string of beads, of various forms and sizes, from a pidgeon's egg to a pea, and by it a sword, dagger, and spear; the others lay in good order, without any particular thing to distinguish them. (fn. 1)

 

In the Nailbourne valley, near the stream, are the two hamlets of Derrington and South Barham; from thence the hills, on the opposite side of it to those already mentioned, rise southward pretty high, the tops of them being covered with woods, one of them being that large one called Covert wood, a manor belonging to the archbishop, and partly in this parish, being the beginning of a poor hilly country, covered with stones, and enveloped with frequent woods.

 

BARHAM, which, as appears by the survey of Domesday, formerly lay in a hundred of its own name, was given anno 809, by the estimation of seven ploughlands, by Cenulph, king of Kent, to archbishop Wlfred, free from all secular demands, except the trinoda necessitas, but this was for the use of his church; for the archbishop, anno 824, gave the monks lands in Egelhorne and Langeduna, in exchange for it. After which it came into the possession of archbishop Stigand, but, as appears by Domesday, not in right of his archbishopric, at the taking of which survey, it was become part of the possessions of Odo, bishop of Baieux, under the title of whose lands it is thus entered in it:

 

In Berham hundred, Fulbert holds of the bishop Berham. It was taxed at six sulings. The arable land is thirty two carucates. In demesne there are three carucates, and fifty two villeins, with twenty cottagers having eighteen carucates. There is a church, and one mill of twenty shillings and four pence. There are twentlyfive fisheries of thirty-five shillings all four pence. Of average, that is service, sixty shilling. Of herbage twenty six shillings, and twenty acres of meadow Of pannage sufficient for one hundred and fifty hogs. Of this manor the bishop gave one berewic to Herbert, the son of Ivo, which is called Hugham, and there be has one carucate in demesne, and twelve villeins, with nine carucates, and twenty acres of meadow. Of the same manor the bisoop gave to Osberne Paisforere one suling and two mills of fifty sbillings, and there is in demesne one carucate, and four villeins with one carucate. The whole of Barbam, in the time of king Edward the Confessor, was worth forty pounds, when be received it the like, and yet it yielded to him one hundred pounds, now Berhem of itself is worth forty pounds, and Hucham ten pounds, and this which Osberne bas six pounds, and the land of one Ralph, a knight, is worth forty shillings. This manor Stigand, the archbishop held, but it was not of the archbishopric, but was of the demesne ferm of king Edward.

 

On the bishop's disgrace four years afterwards, and his estates being confiscated to the crown, the seignory of this parish most probably returned to the see of Canterbury, with which it has ever since continued. The estate mentioned above in Domesday to have been held of the bishop by Fulbert, comprehended, in all likelihood, the several manors and other estates in this parish, now held of the manor of Bishopsborne, one of these was THE MANOR AND SEAT OF BARHAM-COURT, situated near the church, which probably was originally the court-lodge of the manor of Barham in very early times, before it became united to that of Bishopsborne, and in king Henry II.'s time was held of the archbishop by knight's service, by Sir Randal Fitzurse, who was one of the four knights belonging to the king's houshould, who murdered archbishop Becket anno 1170; after perpetrating which, Sir Randal fled into Ireland, and changed his name to Mac-Mahon, and one of his relations took possession of this estate, and assumed the name of Berham from it; and accordingly, his descendant Warin de Berham is recorded in the return made by the sheriff anno 12 and 13 king John, among others of the archbishop's tenants by knight's service, as holding lands in Berham of him, in whose posterity it continued till Thomas Barham, esq. in the very beginning of king James I.'s reign, alienated it to the Rev. Charles Fotherbye, dean of Canterbury, who died possessed of it in 1619. He was eldest son of Martin Fotherby, of Great Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, and eldest brother of Martin Fotherby, bishop of Salisbury. He had a grant of arms, Gules, a cross of lozenges flory, or, assigned to him and Martin his brother, by Camden, clarencieux, in 1605. (fn. 2) His only surviving son Sir John Fotherbye, of Barham-court, died in 1666, and was buried in that cathedral with his father. At length his grandson Charles, who died in 1720, leaving two daughters his coheirs; Mary, the eldest, inherited this manor by her father's will, and afterwards married Henry Mompesson, esq. of Wiltshire, (fn. 3) who resided at Barhamcourt, and died in 1732, s. p. and she again carried this manor in marriage to Sir Edward Dering, bart. of Surrenden, whose second wife she was. (fn. 4) He lest her surviving, and three children by her, Charles Dering, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Farnaby, bart. since deceased, by whom he has an only surviving daughter, married to George Dering, esq. of Rolling, the youngest son of the late Sir Edw. Dering, bart. and her first cousin; Mary married Sir Robert Hilyard, bart. and Thomas Dering, esq. of London. Lady Dering died in 1775, and was succeeded by her eldest son Charles Dering, esq. afterwards of Barhamcourt, the present owner of it. It is at present occupied by Gen. Sir Charles Grey, bart. K. B. commanderin chief of the southern district of this kingdom.

 

THE MANORS OF BROME and OUTELMESTONE, alias DIGGS COURT, are situated in this parish; the latter in the valley, at the western boundary of it, was the first residence in this county of the eminent family of Digg, or, as they were asterwards called, Diggs, whence it gained its name of Diggs-court. John, son of Roger de Mildenhall, otherwise called Digg, the first-mentioned in the pedigrees of this family, lived in king Henry III.'s reign, at which time he, or one of this family of the same name, was possessed of the aldermanry of Newingate, in Canterbury, as part of their inheritance. His descendants continued to reside at Diggs-court, and bore for their arms, Gules, on a cross argent, five eagles with two heads displayed, sable, One of whom, James Diggs, of Diggs-court, died in 1535. At his death he gave the manor and seat of Outelmeston, alias Diggs-court, to his eldest son (by his first wife) John, and the manor of Brome to his youngest son, (by his second wife) Leonard, whose descendants were of Chilham castle. (fn. 5) John Diggs, esq. was of Diggs-court, whose descendant Thomas Posthumus Diggs, esq. about the middle of queen Elizabeth's reign, alienated this manor, with Diggs-place, to Capt. Halsey, of London, and he sold it to Sir Tho. Somes, alderman of London, who again parted with it to Sir B. Dixwell, bart. and he passed it away to Sir Thomas Williams, bart. whose heir Sir John Williams, bart. conveyed it, about the year 1706, to Daniel and Nathaniel Matson, and on the death of the former, the latter became wholly possessed of it, and his descendant Henry Matson, about the year 1730, gave it by will to the trustees for the repair of Dover harbour, in whom it continues at this time vested for that purpose.

 

BUT THE MANOR OF BROME, which came to Leonard Diggs, esq. by his father's will as above-mentioned, was sold by him to Basil Dixwell, esq. second son of Cha. Dixwell, esq. of Coton, in Warwickshire, then of Tevlingham, in Folkestone, who having built a handsome mansion for his residence on this manor, removed to it in 1622. In the second year of king Charles I. he served the office of sheriff with much honour and hospitality; after which he was knighted, and cveated a baronet. He died unmarried in 1641, having devised this manor and seat, with the rest of his estates, to his nephew Mark Dixwell, son of his elder brother William, of Coton above-mentioned, who afterwards resided at Brome, whose son Basil Dixwell, esq. of Brome, was anno 12 Charles II. created a baronet. He bore for his arms, Argent, a chevron, gules, between three sleurs de lis, sable. His only son Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, died at Brome,s. p. in 1750, and devised this, among the rest of his estates, to his kinsman George Oxenden, esq. second son of Sir Geo. Oxenden, bart. of Dean, in Wingham, with an injunction for him to take the name and arms of Dixwell, for which an act passed anno 25 George II. but he died soon afterwards, unmarried, having devised this manor and seat to his father Sir George Oxenden, who settled it on his eldest and only surviving son, now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. who is the present owner of it. He resides at Brome, which he has, as well as the grounds about it, much altered and improved for these many years successively.

 

SHELVING is a manor, situated in the borough of its own name, at the eastern boundary of this parish, which was so called from a family who were in antient times the possessors of it. John de Shelving resided here in king Edward I.'s reign, and married Helen, daughter and heir of John de Bourne, by whom he had Waretius de Shelving, whose son, J. de Shelving, of Shelvingborne, married Benedicta de Hougham, and died possessed of this manor anno 4 Edward III. After which it descended to their daughter Benedicta, who carried it in marriage to Sir Edmund de Haut, of Petham, in whose descendants, in like manner as Shelvington, alias Hautsborne, above-described, it continued down to Sir William Haut, of Hautsborne, in king Henry VIII's reign, whose eldest daughter and coheir Elizabeth carried it in marriage to Tho. Colepeper, esq. of Bedgbury, who in the beginning of king Edward VI.'s reign passed it away to Walter Mantle, whose window carried it by a second marriage to Christopher Carlell, gent. who bore for his arms, Or, a cross flory, gules; one of whose descendants sold it to Stephen Hobday, in whose name it continued till Hester, daughter of Hills Hobday, carried it in marriage to J. Lade, esq. of Boughton, and he having obtained an act for the purpose, alienated it to E. Bridges, esq. of Wootton-court, who passed away part of it to Sir George Oxenden, bart. whose son Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, now owns it; but Mr. Bridges died possessed of the remaining part in 1780, and his eldest son the Rev. Edward Timewell Brydges, is the present possessor of it.

 

MAY DEACON, as it has been for many years past both called and written, is a seat in the southern part of this parish, adjoining to Denton-street, in which parish part of it is situated. Its original and true name was Madekin, being so called from a family who were owners of it, and continued so, as appears by the deeds of it, till king Henry VI's reign, in the beginning of which it passed from that name to Sydnor, in which it continued till king Henry VIII.'s reign, when Paul Sydnor, who upon his obtaining from the king a grant of Brenchley manor, removed thither, and alienated this seat to James Brooker, who resided here, and his sole daughter and heir carried it in marriage, in queen Elizabeth's reign, to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, in Wingham, whose grandson Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. sold it in 1664, to Edward Adye, esq. the second son of John Adye, esq. of Doddington, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Rosamond, entitled her husband George Elcock, esq. afterwards of Madekin, to it, and his daughter and heir Elizabeth carried it in marriage to Capt. Charles Fotherby, whose eldest daughter and coheir Mary, entitled her two successive husbands, Henry Mompesson, esq. and Sir Edward Dering, bart. to the possession of it, and Charles Dering, esq. of Barham-court, eldest son of the latter, by her, is at this time the owner of it. The seat is now inhabited by Henry Oxenden, esq.

 

There are no parochial charities. The poor constantly maintained are about forty, casually fifteen.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanryof Bridge.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. John Baptist, is a handsome building, consisting of a body and side isle, a cross or sept, and a high chancel, having a slim tall spire at the west end, in which are four bells. In the chancel are memorials for George Elcock, esq. of Madeacon, obt. 1703, and for his wife and children; for Charles Bean, A. M. rector, obt. 1731. A monument for William Barne, gent. son of the Rev. Miles Barne. His grandfather was Sir William Barne, of Woolwich, obt. 1706; arms, Azure, three leopards faces, argent. Several memorials for the Nethersoles, of this parish. In the south sept is a magnificent pyramid of marble for the family of Dixwell, who lie buried in a vault underneath, and inscriptions for them. In the north sept is a monument for the Fotherbys. On the pavement, on a gravestone, are the figures of an armed knight (his feet on a greyhound) and his wife; arms, A cross, quartering six lozenges, three and three. In the east window these arms, Gules, three crowns, or—Gules, three lions passant in pale, or. This chapel was dedicated to St. Giles, and some of the family of Diggs were buried in it; and there are memorials for several of the Legrands. There are three tombs of the Lades in the church-yard, the inscriptions obliterated, but the dates remaining are 1603, 1625, and 1660. There were formerly in the windows of this church these arms, Ermine, a chief, quarterly, or, and gules, and underneath, Jacobus Peccam. Another coat, Bruine and Rocheleyquartered; and another, Gules, a fess between three lions heads, erased, argent, and underneath,Orate p ais Roberti Baptford & Johe ux; which family resided at Barham, the last of whom, Sir John Baptford, lest an only daughter and heir, married to John Earde, of Denton.

 

¶The church of Barham has always been accounted as a chapel to the church of Bishopsborne, and as such is included in the valuation of it in the king's books. In 1588 here were communicants one hundred and eighty; in 1640 there were two hundred and fifty.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol9/pp350-358

JFO method of operation for sketch on wall (with pre-made sketch) :

A complete Holistic(*) explanation -

(*) based on the 12-fold nature of Man

 

1. one line uninterrupted from corner to corner, always. Every outline only one line width. Only one shot each line. Each line done fast with stock cap.

 

2. Time allocation to sketch is however long it takes, just leaving one hour at the end minimum to finish piece. If 4 hours total and 3 are sketch, thats fine. Sketch gets all time it deserves. No rush jobs on sketch, ever, only on colours, the opposite of everyone. No compromise for anyone or anything with the outline.

 

3. sketch should be adapted to wall size, mood, new ideas, energy level of that day. Also link to 1. the stock cap demands Agility and Speed which forms the style.

 

4. if the sketch is dope the wall will always be dope no matter how basic the fill. One should have faith.

 

5. We can trust some days we will enhance the sketch.

 

6. We only move on to colour if this sketch part is completely finished and perfect or else we get many issues later. (link to 2. 4. we care about sthg we love so we clean it)

 

7. Ask things.

 

8. We take out anything we dont like as soon as we do it, but sometimes we spend 30 minutes on a sketch convincing ourselves its good, only to just roller it over. A bit how like skateboarders do it, they do it until they dont crash anymore.

 

9. Scaling the paper sketch to fit on the wall : There is a method to always get this right. It involves starting with the middle letter, not the first. All we have to do is get the height right of that middle letter and the rest will fall in place. We use 5 points to guide us at the beginning. We move back and see if these 5 points on one vertical line representing top and bottom of middle letter and lowest and highest point of piece + center (=5), are indeed in accord with total length of piece. We leave half a meter max off the ground to provide atmosphere. This means the center is high on the wall. This means agility Has to be in the upper reaches of the body (the hardest, moving a little chair around for the whole day is a bit toy if you can reach, if you can reach, you can do it, just takes years to develop the strokes up there, one should know how to be on toes for a long time). This method allows for more impact on the first letter, since we can now fit it better, whereas if we had started it with the first letter, chances are we would get the scale off. You see this over and over again in people who exaggerate their motivation and will to stretch and swing, left with a squeezed letter at the end (toy) or going into the next guy’s space (toy). Why is this ? Simply because they dont have the ability to move back from the piece, consider the whole, and distribute the space for each letter. They are locked in detail and zoomed in localised thought, a mind-trap. You might see most piece are 2:1 ratio, but if 3:1 or higher, than the height is more reduced on the wall. Understand that the longer the piece, the shorter the height, if length of wall is set. Feel the link between the two on the wall and the 5 points, use visual estimation. Some use phones, maybe its ok for commissions, but for pieces, isnt that bit toy, promoting loss of human skills. A good mechanic can look at a wrench and say what size it is everytime. To make long pieces AND to have a context (empty space or bkgd) means to do small pieces. The number 9 is actually a number that looks like its unrolling itself to become a 1. We are back to 1 (first point in list) and now we see This is why we do one line outlines and never more.

 

10. Every line is judged, is it good or not. If there are 100 segments, there are 100 verdicts. WIldstyles take a heavier hit on the mental (for usually little reward).

 

11. Sketch style philosophy : We believe our style path is closely related to the Medusa archetype. We are creating and have created a whole new system of doing things. This is only 0.001 %

 

12. The outline you do is but a drop in the ocean. It means Nothing. Only if someone wants it as part of their life it can mean something, but the author rejects his creations in exchange for his own sanity.

  

ooooooh thats deep.

   

Maasai Mara, Kenya

14:19 20 July 2008

 

Mammalia

Artiodactyla

Giraffidae

Giraffa camelopardalis

 

:...It is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as Vulnerable to extinction, and has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. Giraffes are still found in numerous national parks and game reserves but estimations as of 2016 indicate that there are approximately 97,500 members of Giraffa in the wild, with around 1,144 in captivity." - Wikipedia

Civaux, a village with a population of about 1000, has a history rooting very deep. Humans populated the area already, when stepp bisons and mammoths were hunted. Many "pre-historic" artefacts have been excavated in and around Civaux, proving that this place was inhabited over tens of thousands of years.

 

A settlement stood on the site of the village in Gallo-Roman times, and there are still traces of Roman temples. Excavations have revealed the sites of a theater (capacity 3000), a fortified camp, and the foundations of many villas.

 

This has been a place of very early christianisation. A funeral stele has been found dating to around 400, a pagan temple and a very early baptisterium were excavated next to the church. The polygonal apse was probably built as well around 400, what actually means that this church, dedicated to Saint Gervais and Saint Protais is one of the oldest in France.

 

At that time a kind of pilgrimage must have developed. The relics of Saint Gervais and Saint Protais had been miraculously discovered by Saint Ambrose in Milan in 386, so the saints got very popular in Merovingian times, but that does explain the enigma of Civaux. The village stands in the center of a huge merovingian necropole.

 

As the many sarcophagi were sold as water basins or troughs in later time, the exact number of graves is unknown. Serious estimations are between 15.000 and 20.000 graves.

 

There are parallels to nearby Saint Pierre in Cauvigny (16 kms north). The same colours as in Chauvigny were used here during the restauration of the interior. At least one of the capitals is very similar to one in Saint Pierre, but some carvings are absolutely unique. The nave dates back to the 11th century, the apse more than 600 years older.

 

Thanks to the friendly lady from the Archaeological Museum I could take photos from the gallery of the church. Merci beaucoup!

 

A couple of mythical beasts of hell, devouring souls are in the foreground.

 

www.tourisme-vienne.com/en/activite/88/musee-archeologique

Facing south-southwest and looking down FM (Farm to Market) 170. We're about 55 yd / 50 m up the road from the entrance to the Grassy Banks Campground.

 

This was my first stop, about 6.7 straight-line mi / 10.8 km west of Lajitas, on the day that included a drive into the heart of the Solitario. Well, it was the first scenic stop; my tour group and I had first checked in and obtained a permit at the state park's Barton Warnock Visitor Center.

 

I'm glad there's a lot of pavement showing in this photo, because this is my tribute to FM 170, which in my own estimation is one of the greatest driving routes in the United States.

 

It may lack the claustrophobic grandeur of Interstate 70 threading its way through Colorado's Glenwood Canyon, or the elevated bucolic majesty of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina. Nevertheless, it leads the traveler through a landscape that is one of the most unearthly on Earth. And I find that otherworldiness both spiritually and intellectually activating.

 

And at no extra cost one also gets unforgettable views of another country, just across the thin ribbon of water that is the Rio Grande and the international border. Here the river isn't visible, but it flows, believe it or not, between this road and the dark, snaggletoothed ridge that runs across the frame.

 

That ridge, by the way, like the high ground on the American side, is composed of the Bee Mountain Basalt Member of the Eocene-to-Oligocene Chisos Formation. (I'm sure that Mexican geologists have their own name for this unit. My apologies for not using it, since the basalt in question is indeed in Mexico. I definitely need to get some good mapping of that side of the Rio Grande.)

 

The Bee Mountain Basalt, also found in various places farther to the east i n Big Bend National Park, comprises a series of mafic lava flows that erupted mostly in the very early Oligocene, about 33 Ma.

 

Throughout a region stretching from western Mexico and Trans-Pecos Texas to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, it was a time of intense volcanism. This activity may have been triggered when the Farallon Plate, which had been subducting under North America at a very shallow angle, finally steepened its descent. Its water-rich rocks would have melted and risen upward through the crust as buoyant magma.

 

The shrub species seen here growing happily in this volcanically derived Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem is the usual suspect—Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata). While it certainly dominates the vegetation along the fringes of this stretch of FM 170, I did come across some wildflowers blooming along the gravel shoulder. One of those will be the subject of the next post in this series.

 

To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my From Lajitas to the Cuevas Amarillas Locale album.

     

Book NOW available through www.arvobrothers.com

 

DESCRIPTION:

 

After a long time, we are glad to present our new book “Alien Project”.

 

Inspired by the works of geniuses H.R. Giger and Ron Cobb, this new project presented us with an opportunity to build one of the greatest icons of fantasy art. A journey from organic to geometric shapes, from dark to light, and the deep admiration that drives us to build all our creations as our only luggage. This book includes detailed, step-to-step instructions showing how to build the model, together with comments, pictures and diagrams that help the description and will contribute to your understanding of the entire process.

 

Build your own model. The technology gives us the opportunity. Now is the time.

 

Content:

 

220 pages divided into four chapters:

 

C1.- ESTIMATIONS

C2.- CONSTRUCTION OF THE MODEL (description of the building process)

C3.- INSTRUCTIONS (steps, building alternatives & catalogue)

C4.- GALLERY

 

Offset printing, hard cover.

 

--------------------------------------

 

Follow us:

 

Facebook | Tumbler

 

More:

 

www.arvobrothers.com

 

This graphic highlights an ongoing process at Mars: the escaping atmosphere. Ancient Mars was a lot warmer and wetter with a much thicker atmosphere than the present day, which is cold and arid. Just as the other rocky planets, Mars too would have started out with a thicker atmosphere thanks to the delivery of volatiles from asteroids and comets, and volcanic outgassing from the planet as its rocky interior cooled down. The planet’s low gravity and lack of magnetic field likely contributed to its inability to hold on to its atmosphere over time. It is exposed to the solar wind – a continuous flow of charged particles from the Sun – that, just as on Venus, continues to strip away the atmosphere even today. Mars Express has been studying the Sun-Mars interaction for more than 15 years to understand how the atmosphere is escaping. More recently, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter observed that water loss from the atmosphere is more enhanced during global dust storms.

 

ESA has demonstrated expertise in studying Mars from orbit, now we are looking to secure a safe landing, to rove across the surface and to drill underground to search for evidence of life. Our orbiters are already in place to provide data relay services for surface missions. The next logical step is to bring samples back to Earth, to provide access to Mars for scientists globally, and to better prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet.

 

This set of infographics highlight’s ESA’s contribution to Mars exploration as we ramp up to the launch of our second ExoMars mission, and look beyond to completing a Mars Sample Return mission.

 

Credits: ESA – S. Poletti

I received an email this morning from Kevin Norbie who was kind enough to advise me of developments in Superior, Wisconsin on this the 24th day of August, 2016. The last remnants of the Terminal's roundhouse, located at the corner of Oakes Avenue and Belknap Street, were being torn down as Kevin drove to work today.

 

(I'd love to see some images of this project if anyone has time to drive over there and shoot a few pictures they can share with me.)

 

I'd like to share an image and some information about this roundhouse and its original "inhabitants". I can do that thanks to the collective input that I received from Kevin Norbie, David Guay, and Wayne C. Olsen who's efforts rounded out my own research on this topic.

 

In my humble estimation the rarest image that I have in my archive is probably the one you're looking at right now. The Terminal was incorporated on June 13, 1884. The line always operated completely within the limits of the City of Superior. It opened for business in June 1887. So the roundhouse we see in this picture (the first roundhouse constructed in Superior and the last remaining one being torn down today) was likely built during 1885 as a 7-stall structure to hold the first 7 of its steam locomotives. That's how we see them here, lined up left to right, numbered 1 through 7.

 

The biggest mystery about this small railroad was the origin of these first locomotives. That's due mostly to the fact that when the first Superior Union Depot burned down in July 1904, it took with it all of the Terminal's paper records and photographs. Superior Union Depot was built, owned and operated by The Lake Superior Terminal & Transfer Railway of the State of Wisconsin (its official name) and all of the Terminal's records were contained inside of this, their headquarters building. Since these locomotives and even the records of this roundhouse predate that fire, most evidence of their origins or very existence are really quite scarce if not impossible to locate.

 

Each of these first engines was built by Schnectady Locomotive Works. They were all of the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement. The first six of them had 17x24 inch cylinders and 52 inch drivers, while the seventh had larger 18x24 cylinders and 52 inch drivers. Number 7 also sported a peculiar polished stainless steel star on its smoke box front, visible in this image.

 

Builders numbers and dates for the LST&T's first seven (7) steam locomotives were as follows:

 

Number One: Construction No. 2956 built November 1889

Number Two: Construction No. 2995 built December 1889

Number Three: Construction No. 3071 built April 1890

Number Four: Construction No. 3227 built August 1890

Number 5: Construction No. 3518 built July 1891

Number 6: Construction No. 3519 built July 1891

Number 7: Construction No. 3520 built July 1891

 

I listed them out as "Number One, Two, etc. for a reason. During this early period of railroading the only actual number on the first four of their locomotives was painted on the side of the tender and emblazoned on the smoke box front. The side numbers in the headlight awnings (front and rear) were actually spelled out on translucent glass that flanked each side of the headlight. So engine 1 had "ONE" spelled out on the glass on either side of the headlight; engine 2 had "TWO" spelled out; and so forth. It seems that they did that up to and including engine number FOUR. Subsequent locomotives had numerical digits all the way around. Special thanks to Kevin for pointing that out to me last year when he showed me his lovely portrait of locomotive FOUR.

 

The Terminal ran with these seven locomotives until 0-8-0s number 8 and 9 arrived from Baldwin in 1907. The roundhouse was enlarged prior to that to make it a total of 10 stalls and the Terminal's steam roster had an eventual total of 23 engines though these earliest 0-6-0s left the roster after 1900 as larger and more powerful 0-8-0s and 0-6-0s came in to replace them between 1907 and 1945. While the line bought most of their steam new from the factories, they did buy several engines second hand during and after the war. The Terminal leased steam too including at minimum Great Northern Railway A9 0-6-0 No. 80, and possibly several others (I'm still researching this topic).

 

So it is the combination of my great admiration for this little railroad and Kevin's message to me this morning that stirs the historian in me to bring these seven locomotives out of the dark at long, long last. I think it's a fitting way to honor them posed inside of their original roundhouse. It is a structure that has stood the test of time and change in Superior, Wisconsin right up until today anyway.

 

This little 10-stall roundhouse has been a cornerstone of railroad history in Superior (albeit forgotten by most passers by) since 1885. Even though it has been living out its last years as a recycling center I'd say that a 130+ life span is a pretty good run for any building made from simple bricks and wooden beams. But this is an especially good run for this structure considering that it hadn't seen a locomotive or even a railroader inside of it since late 1974 when it was permanently closed. This building at 1425 Oakes Avenue in Superior actually remained in railroad hands until it was sold in January 1980 by controlling owner Burlington Northern. It became the Superior Recycling Center later in 1980 which today functions as a part of the larger Waste Management corporation. No doubt, they have plans for a more modern recycling facility on this same site.

 

Once the roundhouse was closed in 1974, all locomotive maintenance on LST&T Railway diesel locomotives was transferred over to Burlington Northern at their Belknap Street roundhouse. That one was located at the opposite end of the Belknap Street viaduct on the west side of the rail yards in Superior. It was the largest and by far the most modern of the five roundhouses built in Superior. It was built by the Eastern Railway of Minnesota in 1900 that became a part of the Great Northern in 1907. It actually replaced an even earlier roundhouse that was located about 200 feet south of Winter Street right where the coal main crosses the road today. This big GN roundhouse was partially leveled in 1952, with an equal amount torn down again in 1982, and then the rest of it came down in its entirety during August/September of 1986. Superior's other railroads, the Omaha and Soo Line, followed suit by tearing down their roundhouses too. Now, none remain.

 

The LST&T Railway went from 23 locomotives and 24 miles of track at its peak to just a few tracks that remain today used by BNSF to move grain cars down to Tower Bay and out onto Connor's Point. A few pieces of their equipment do remain, though not here. Their Jordan spreader snow plow still functions at the museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin. Several of their diesel-electric locomotives are still running on on a tourist line in St. Paul. And one lonely caboose sits on stilts on a farm in Wisconsin. I guess that's something.

 

But who would have ever guessed that the first railroad roundhouse constructed in the City of Superior in 1885 would also end up being the last one standing more than 130 years later?

 

As of this afternoon, I imagine that the only remains in Superior of this long forgotten railroad will be what had to be its proudest achievement—the second Superior Union Depot built in 1905. Constructed of Lake Superior brownstone at 933 Oakes Avenue, I'd like to think that THIS former Terminal building could make a triumphant comeback with some kind of grand re-purposing. But if it doesn't, then all memory of the Terminal line and its buildings and trains will only be found in pictures, and stories, such as this one.

 

I hope to share many more of my pictures and stories about the LST&T Railway with you soon. If I don't, and you have questions in the mean time, feel free to write and ask. I'm happy to dig out the answers. As Otto Dobnick once put it to me, "Jeff, you are the LST&T Railway Historical Society!"

 

Possibly, but that didn't happen without a lot of contributions from other people. Such as the ones who enabled me to write this story over a few cups of coffee this morning. It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I went over a little as this one took 1,474 of them. Sorry if I ran a little long today.

 

Long live the Lake Superior Terminal & Transfer Railway of the State of Wisconsin.

I grew up on Clarence Road, in an unheard-of community called Beaconsfield, in the shadow of North Mountain, Nova Scotia — barely tall enough by any estimation to deserve the term “mountain”. We were too proud to admit living under a delusion of grandeur, perched on rocky tip-toes with her nose to the sky. She was my backyard sense of wonder, straight uphill from where everything ran down. We were the victims of poor landscaping, and every heavy rain or spring melt filled our basement toes-deep with silty water.

 

It was a constant disaster for our parents, but I was thrilled seeing the water rush from north to south. I’d splash around in concrete puddles, gently rippling between the walls of the halls like some indoor Venice. I had no possessions to ruin, no mold on my mind, so it was easy to be excited about the next spring flood. It almost seemed sad when the backhoes came to save our souls, digging deep trenches, and dropping in a series of drains to rescue us from the weeping mountain.

 

Our home was built on the foundation of an abandoned building, but only the west/north/south walls remained when they tore it down, their pitted concrete swallowed up inside our own. We were living on the corpse of history, the cemetery of someone’s long-gone family memories. This was the house that Jack Skafte built. My father made it happen with bits of the borrowed past, a structure or two he demolished and scrapped for a new creature who’d let us live within it. It was a beautiful Frankenstein’s monster, a slow-built structure that took a decade to finally close in around us. First it was the home with no upstairs, then the tar-paper shack, the work in progress, ever-changing until my mother finally had enough of endlessness. If you drove by now, I guess you could claim that it’s complete.

 

The house is an open concept, much of the upstairs interconnected, and that seemed to cause confusion with new visitors. It offered the illusion of largeness, a much bigger building in the borders of a small one, like the spirit of the derelict shack still living on inside it. People would ask for multiple directions to the bathrooms, losing their way since last visit. Dad put tall windows in all across the front, a plan for passive solar that he’d picked up from his stacks of Mother Earth News. It worked well enough, and sunny days in winter could have us sweating like summer. To help air circulation, he placed a large metal grate in the upstairs floor. It made folks nervous to walk right over, worried somehow that they’d plummet to the basement. Some would skirt around, Indiana Jones style, heels to the wall like a nervous cliff climber.

 

These were my borders since birth, a life under the same roof, with every context of comfort and fear in the same space. There was no escape, though none was wanted. Home was easy to define, by a street, a number, all calls to area code 902, prefix 665. I knew where I belonged, and all through the 90s, I never needed a new definition.

 

Everything was an adventure with our little lives bordering the forest. We never reached the end of what the woods meant, under the shelter of a hundred thousand trees making their hard climb up the mountainside. The four of us siblings (and I was the youngest) would pull on our ragged rubber boots, running out wild in the woods together. We’d enter wherever the tangle would let us, through raspberry bushes behind the church next door, under angry tendrils of wild roses, rasping and tearing our skin with their spines. If I could find a spark in my mind, some invented story of a jungle-wandering trekker, I’d become him for a moment. Maybe searching for prey or praying for shelter, running headlong into the young growth.

 

I made too much noise to catch a creature in the trees, but sometimes I’d spot a red fox running off, or the shocking shuddering of a startled pheasant spreading its wings. We cleared the old survey trails, three boys and our sister, with just a hatchet and a handful of hand tools. They were paths of discovery, uncovered wanderings to a deeper magic. I made maps of every bend and curve on big sheets of paper, marking locations of significance. Here stands the treehouse, nailed up in scavenged lumber; there goes the furthest trail to the darkest corner, here grows the tallest tree I’ve found.

 

We’d make our way to a stream that dripped down beneath briars and brambles, kick off our boots to bare feet, and wade in cold water that held a chill all through the summer. We’d make dams in the mud, hold back the rushing flow, call out gravity for being more of a suggestion than a law. I fell in love with the rainstorm as soon as I knew what it meant — sometimes in springtime, with echoes of thunder and wonder, torrents of southbound water faithfully seeking the river. Like young gods, we’d toss in little plastic boats, watching them drift like riders on the storm.

 

We never named much in the woods. The Stream, that’s all we called her, the only one close enough to matter, just a blue squiggle on the map. By the banks stood several sickly apple trees, hopelessly overgrown and past their prime, and dead tires by the blue skeleton of a pick-up truck rusting in the shade. We’d follow the trickle north and steep, through tangled brush and fallen trunks, over loose rocks and slippery scrapes on granite boulders. We’d dig deadly caves in loose dirt banks, often collapsed by the next time we passed, never considering the risk of cave-in when we were present. We’d meet Hampton Mountain Road at a culvert near the top of the stream, just bellow Valley View Point where cars with truck brakes rattled over. This was at the roadside lookoff, clear to the valley floor; a makeout point, where Friday night kids pulled over to fog up their windows.

 

I’d run downhill home with aching sides and burning legs from restraining the descent, sometimes taking the Anthill Trail to cut the corner from Hampton Mountain to the top of Bay Road. It was a thin shot along the property line, past the slopes of a knee-high insect mound. The shortcut took us by our grandparents’ back yard, but also saved us passing the trailer of their next-door neighbour. Grandpa Skafte told us that the man had gangrene, teasing us into believing it was something akin to the black plague. We couldn’t risk coming too close.

 

Every return home was the triumphant arrival from a long journey lost. There was a kind of happy, lonely, empty feeling of being more independent than yesterday, a little bit wilder than expected. I’d collapse by the big picture window in the living room, climb the big, brown, ugly easy chair of my father’s, waiting for the day to close and dinner to start. That chair was sorry and threadbare, with patches my mother had sewn on the arms like a pair of skinned-knee jeans. It was second-hand beast who’d creak if you just looked at her wrong. She spun around in all directions, so I’d turn my back to the room, peering out the window to the passing traffic below. That chair is long gone now, but I'm sitting in the one that took its place.

 

I didn’t know how to be bored with watching, stolen by the excitement of cars going someplace further, all the different shapes and colours. You could see the world that mattered, over young treetops to the twinkling streetlights of Bridgetown, where the old Acadian Distillery sat disused in its shadows. We could just make out town lights at night, and the highest sparks of Canada Day fireworks in the distance, explosions echoing and rattling our window with a delay of half-seconds from the three-kilometer distance.

 

If I wanted to see the whole way down, I’d walk the dozen yards to the corner, where Clarence and Inglewood Road ran over each other, and stare one straight shot to our river town. On my walk back, I’d duck between the twin posts of the Beaconsfield sign, and imagine another planet on the far side. Some imperceptible change maybe, shift to another dimension. I knew that I was imagining, but it would've been cheating to admit it.

 

When winter came, we’d beat back the blizzards with our woodstove in the basement. She was a living, rattling beast, with her popping and boiling kettle like a blowhole up top, red coals glowing inside, and her desire to burn your fingers if you got too close. These were times of endless evenings, rattling sleet on the windows, sifting of snowdrifts conspired to drown our basement bedrooms. We were under the weather, sheltered like igloo dwellers, insulated against the falling mercury. With an open space to spread the heat, thick windows and thick walls, our big house burned less than three cords a winter. This was a fact often stated by my father — a technical achievement he never grew tired of telling.

 

I was always hoping for a power outage, a blackout that would silence all the buzzing and leave only the storm outside. I often watched it happen by my old favorite perch at the picture window, nothing between me and the stormy wild but a thin sheet of glass. I’d sit in the darkest corner of the growing gloom and imagine how it’d be to never have electricity again. These were the final memories of a worry-free mind, moments before bedtime, deep down in the depths of the freezing season. Sitting in my father’s lap right here, as he read passages from Laura Ingles Wilder. My mind was in that book's big woods, long-lost leaving to a house on the prairies, and a dream to take me to sleep. For anything imagined, this was where the spark started.

 

December 6, 2025

Beaconsfield, Nova Scotia

 

Year 19, Day 6600 of my daily journal.

 

bluesky | etsy | facebook | instagram

substack | threads | tumblr | youtube

 

You can support my work

get things in the mail

and see everything

first on Patreon

Circa 1972. This was one of those shots in which the camera could be preset with the right exposure and focus distance, set on top of the table awaiting only the perfect time to trip the shutter, or perhaps simply an opportune time to do so.

 

Taken using my mom's Olympus Pen-D half-frame 35mm film camera. Focus was by estimation only.

Item nº 53206.

Renault 4L "Guardia Civil" (España).

Escala 1/43.

Mondo S.p.A. (Italia).

Made in China.

Año 2014 (?)

 

More info about Mondo Motors 1:43 diecast collections:

www.mondomotors.org/products_category.cfm?id=827

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Renault 4

 

"La Renault 4 (couramment appelée 4L) est une petite voiture populaire de grande diffusion de conception simple et pratique. Ce fut aussi la première application de la traction sur une voiture automobile de tourisme de la marque Renault après que cette technique a été adoptée sur l'Estafette en 1958.

 

Elle est construite d'août 1961 à la fin 1992 dans 28 pays, initialement avec la Dauphine sur l'île Seguin à Boulogne-Billancourt ainsi qu'à l'usine Renault de Flins, en Espagne (par Fasa-Renault), en Argentine par IKA-Renault, en Italie par Alfa Romeo (sous licence), au Maroc, à Madagascar, en Afrique du Sud, puis en Slovénie pour les dernières années de sa production.

 

La Renault 4 connut un grand succès auprès des PME, des artisans, de la gendarmerie (c'était l'une des voitures françaises de l'époque qui permettait de conduire avec le képi sur la tête), mais également auprès des PTT, de France Télécom ou EdF dans sa version fourgonnette F4 ; ces contrats lui donnèrent une très grande visibilité.

 

En France, la Renault 4 fut en tête des ventes de 1962 à 1965 (succédant à la Renault Dauphine), puis de 1967 à 1968. Elle reste aujourd'hui [Quand ?] la deuxième voiture française la plus vendue avec 8 135 424 exemplaires derrière la Peugeot 206 et juste devant le duo Renault 9 et 11."

(...)

 

"Moteurs utilisés sur la Renault 4 au fil des années4 :

 

- 603 cm3 (49 x 80) : puissance 23 ch et couple de 4,3 mkg. Monté sur R3 (modèles 1962) ;

- 747 cm3 (54,5 x 80) : puissance 27,6 ch à 30 ch et couple de 5,1 à 5,6 mkg ;

- 782 cm3 (55 x 80) à partir des modèles 1972 : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,4 mkg ;

- 845 cm3 (58 x 80) avec option 5 CV : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,9 mkg. Montée en série pour 1983 ;

- 956 cm3 (65 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 6,2 mkg. Monté sur les derniers modèles TL Savane à partir de mai 1986 ;

- 1 108 cm3 (70 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 7,5 mkg. Équipe en série la 4 GTL à partir du début 1978."

(...)

 

Versions

 

- La R3

"La R3 est une déclinaison économique avec le petit « moteur Billancourt » de 603 cm³ « sous-alésé » dérivé du moteur de la 4 CV. (...) Elle ne fut produite que de 1961 à 1962, le nombre total d'exemplaires construits varie selon les estimations entre 2 526 et 2 571, ce qui en fait un modèle extrêmement recherché par les collectionneurs aujourd'hui."

 

- La R4 L

"À côté de la R3 et de la R4 de base — sensiblement équivalente à la R3 dans sa présentation — il existait une déclinaison « Luxe » dite R4 L, elle se caractérisait par sa troisième vitre latérale et différents accessoires et baguettes inox, qui la rendait plus luxueuse.

Cette version, qui s'appela bientôt R4 L Export, fut la plus vendue. À tel point que l'appellation générique de la Renault 4 deviendra progressivement 4L. Par rapport à la version de base, qui possédait des sièges du type « strapontins suspendus » de même type que la 2 CV, la R4 L Export possédait des sièges plus élaborés et plus confortables (séparés à l'avant) et une banquette arrière rabattable."

 

- La Parisienne (1963)

 

- Les R4 Export, 4 TL et TL Savane

"Hormis le modèle de base, la Renault traverse la fin des années 1960 et les années 1970 sous la forme de la R4 « Export », qui devint la 4 TL pour 1976. (...)

En 1986, le modèle TL est rebaptisé « TL Savane » (...) En 1989, Renault équipe ce modèle du « pack sécurité » (...) "

 

- La 4 GTL

"Début 1978, la 4 GTL reprend la formule qui a fait le succès de la Renault 5 GTL : un gros « moteur Cléon-Fonte » de 1 108 cm3 retravaillé pour consommer moins (5,4 litres aux 100) et des bandes de protection latérales grises avec pare-chocs et crosses avant assortis. La version GTL supplantera rapidement la 4 TL.

En mai 1986, lors du remaniement de la gamme, la GTL devient « GTL Clan », (...)

En 1989, Renault revient à de plus banales jantes tôles, et équipe ce modèle du même « pack sécurité » que la version TL Savane.

Trop âgée pour pouvoir respecter les normes antipollution qui doivent arriver en 1993 (pot catalytique obligatoire), la production de Renault 4 est arrêtée fin 1992 avec une série « Bye-Bye » de R4 GTL Clan, des modèles numérotés de 1 à 1 000 devenus collectors."

 

- Séries spéciales

"Dès le début de la production, Renault propose des modèles à diffusion limitées, afin de relancer les ventes, ou encore rajeunir l'image de la voiture. Plusieurs séries spéciales sont ainsi créées : la « Safari » (1976), la « Jogging » (1981), la « Sixties » (1985) avec sa sellerie flashy et ses deux toits ouvrants, la « Carte jeune » (1991)...

Durant les années 1960, d'autres modèles nettement plus rares ont été produits, tels la « Plein air », la « Parisienne » ou encore des adaptations 4x4 produites par Sinpar."

(...)

 

Source: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

 

More info:

www.renaultclassiccarclub.com/ModelsRegister/r4_history.html

www.r4-4l.com/tous-les-modeles-de-4l/histoire-de-la-4l/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

50 aniversario del Renault 4L en España [1964-2014]

 

Emilio Salmoral

Periodista especializado en el mundo del motor. Colaborador en AUTO BILD

 

02/05/2014 - 10:35

 

"Aunque el Renault 4L llevaba fabricándose desde finales de 1963 (se hicieron 250 unidades), hasta el año siguiente no comenzaron las primeras entregas a los clientes.

Pero el Renault 4 no era un coche desconocido, ya que llevaba desde 1961 fabricándose en Francia.

Es posible que circularan algunas unidades construidas en el país vecino, pero tuvieron que pasar tres años para fabricar en España.

Por cierto, en Portugal también se construyó en la planta de Guarda y los aficionados sienten devoción por él.

 

Respecto a la versión francesa, el Renault 4L de FASA es diferente. Los parachoques son de un diseño distinto y tiene una especie de bigote en la placa de la matrícula posterior. Además, los coches españoles tampoco tienen los intermitentes laterales que sí tenían los franceses.

La historia nos ha demostrado que lo que buscaban los ingenieros españoles era, sobre todo, una mecánica con mayores capacidades. Por ello, nuestro 4L utilizó un motor de 845 centímetros cúbicos y 30 CV de potencia con los que podía ofrecer unas capacidades dinámicas superiores que los del 0,7 litros que también se vendía en Francia como versión de acceso.

Asimismo, todos los coches comercializados en España tienen un sistema eléctrico de 12 voltios que permite una mayor iluminación.

En 1965, Renault lanza al mercado la versión Super que ofrecía a su conductor unos asientos más lujosos y en 1967 empieza a utilizar los paragolpes del Renault 8."

(...)

 

"En 1968 se introduce al mercado el primer restyling del Renault 4. Las principales diferencias son una parrilla totalmente nueva que se hace evidente en todo el frontal del vehículo.

Pero los mayores cambios se encuentran en la mecánica: el R4 abandona el motor originario del 4/4 y estrena el tipo Sierra del Renault 8 que ofrecía una elevadísima fiabilidad. Con este bloque, la potencia se incrementó hasta los 35 CV. También era muy alabado por los conductores de su época el excelente sincronizado de su caja de cambios.

 

Así se mantuvo el Renault 4 hasta que en 1978 se sometió a su segunda puesta al día. La bonita parrilla de aluminio dejó paso a una de plástico; los intermitentes adoptaron el color naranja y ganaron en tamaño. Por cierto, volvió a cambiar de paragolpes. Como el Renault 8 ya no se fabricaba, recurrió a los que usaba el Renault 4 francés de 1968.

En 1982 se produjo un hecho histórico, ya que el 4L adoptó el motor de 1,1 litros con 40 CV. Este bloque es legendario para la marca francesa, ya que lo han usado coches como el 8 TS, Renault 5 o Twingo.

 

Pero el interior del Renault 4L seguía siendo el mismo y muchos conductores estaban cansados de ese salpicadero de tono beige que era demasiado simple.

En 1983 FASA decidió darle a su coche un aspecto visual más moderno y apostó el plástico negro, una renovada instrumentación y unos asientos más cómodos que llegaron a incluir hasta reposacabezas.

El último Renault 4 se fabricó en Valladolid en 1989.

Aunque el coche se comercializó hasta 1992, el que quería un 4L tenía que comprarse la versión Clan que estaba fabricada en Eslovenia y no tenía la calidad de construcción de nuestro paisano castellano."

(...)

 

Fuente: www.autobild.es/reportajes/50-aniversario-renault-4l-espa...

 

More info:

elautomovilenespana.blogspot.com.es/2010/06/renault-4-ii....

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

www.ocio.net/motor/historia-del-renault-4-un-automovil-un...

 

Memphis, TN, est. 1819, pop. 650,000

 

• in the 1950s, in a small studio on Union, Ave., Sam C. Phillips (1923-2003) recorded music that is "one of the true touchstones of American culture" —Escott, Hawkins, Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'N' Roll

 

• this two-story corner bldg. is located in Memphis's Edge district • before becoming the Sun Studio Café, the 1st floor housed Taylor's Fine Food restaurant (1948-1981) [photo] • owned by Dell Taylor (1911-2003) & husband, Carlos (1914-1976) • 2nd floor was a rooming house

 

• the 1908 bldg. shares a partywall with a 1-story storefront at no. 706, built in 1916 [photos] • this small adjacent structure became Memphis Recording Service & later, Sun Studio [discography], where Elvis Presley (1935-1977) began his recording career

 

"Dell M. Taylor served up country fried steak and gentle mothering to the emerging stars of Sun Studio… Mrs. Taylor saw to it that Elvis Presley, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Carl Perkins, — along with the mechanics and other workers from the auto dealership row on Union — had the freshest greens and vegetables… Many a song was written in the booths, as the musicians would come in to eat during a break in recording at Sun Studio next door… Sun Studio founder Sam Phillips, credited with discovering Elvis and others, often did his bookkeeping at the restaurant." —Chris Conley, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 24 Feb., 2003

 

• Sam Phillips, who claimed he didn't have a desk, had his own booth at Taylor's to pore over paperwork • "That's where all the guys did their writing and talking, and that's where the Sun sound was really born." –Jack Clement (1931-2013), Sun Studio producer

 

• exhausted musicians often spent the night in one of "Miss Taylor's" upstairs rooms • while recording at Sun the mid-1950s, Roy Orbison had a two-room apartment there

 

• the bldg. now serves as visitor center for the recording studio, which is open to the public for tours

 

Marker: Elvis Presley and Sun Records

 

In July 1954 Sun Records released Elvis Presley's first recording. That record, and Elvis' four that followed on the Sun label, changed popular music. Elvis developed an innovative and different sound combining blues, gospel, and country. That quality made Elvis a worldwide celebrity within two years. He went on to become one of the most famous and beloved entertainers in history. Sun Records introduced many well known people in all fields of music. Generations of musicians have been affected by those who recorded here and especially by the music Elvis Presley first sang at Sun Records

 

National Historic Landmark Nomination: (unedited version with citations available here)

 

Marion Keisker (1917-1989), Phillips's sole assistant & employee when he started his business said he "would talk about this idea he had, this dream, I suppose, to have a facility where black people could come and play their own music, a place where they would feel free and relaxed to do it. One day we were riding along, and he saw that spot on Union, and he said, 'That's the spot I want.' With many difficulties we got the place, and we raised the money, and between us we did everything. We laid all the tile, we painted the acoustic boards, I put in the bathroom, Sam put in the control room—what little equipment he had always had to be the best." — quoted by Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley

 

Phillips started his own record company, Sun Records, in 1952, "the first great rock 'n' roll record label." • Some of the artists Phillips recorded would redefine the musical genres in which they worked. Many of them made for Phillips not only their first recordings but also their best.

 

Before World War II most black music was blues, and a lot of those were country blues of the Mississippi Delta, the raw, gut-wrenching folk music of rural African Americans… Black migration out of the rural South accelerated during the First World War and exploded after World War II when manual cotton picking came to an end. Synthetic materials took over the market after the discovery of nylon in 1939, and the mechanical cotton picker, able to do the work of fifty people, arrived soon after. "The main musical result of the great migration was the blues came to town, and not to any old town: to Memphis, which acted as the local focus for migration from the Delta." — Sir Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization

 

In Memphis, WDIA started out in 1947 as a popular and country music radio station. The station switched formats in 1948 and began programming for a black audience after the success of a show called "Black America Speaks," hosted by Memphis's first black on-air personality, Nat Williams (1907-1983) [editorial: Color the Issue, A Point of View by Nat L. Williams]

 

Also in 1948, Dewey Phillips (1926-1968), a white radio announcer from rural Tennessee, began to host a show on WHBQ. "Red Hot and Blue" [listen] expanded from fifteen minutes to three hours daily during its first year on the air. Phillips played "an eclectic mix of blues, hillbilly, and pop that would become an institution in Memphis, and his importance to the cross-cultural miscegenation that became Rock 'n' Roll is incalculable." By 1951, word began to spread that white kids were buying "race records."

 

Sam Phillips was born on January 5, 1923 in the northwest corner of Alabama near Florence, about 150 miles east of Memphis. He got his first radio job in 1940 at WLAY in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and later took correspondence courses in radio engineering. He worked at WMSL in Decatur, Alabama, and at WLAC in Nashville before moving to Memphis in 1945.

 

In January 1950, Phillips started his own recording business in addition to his regular jobs. The Memphis Recording Service opened at 706 Union Avenue, about a mile east of the downtown area. The small one-story brick building had a reception area/office at the front of the building, a recording studio in the middle section, and a small control room in the rear. The entire building is only about 18 feet wide and 57 feet long. Phillips's business card read "We Record Anything—Anywhere—Anytime." Initially that included weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, advertisements for radio, etc., in addition to musicians in his studio.

 

"I opened the Memphis Recording Service with the intention of recording singers and musicians from Memphis and the locality who I felt had something that people should be able to hear. I'm talking about blues—both the country style and the rhythm style—and also about gospel or spiritual music and about white country music. I always felt that people who played this type of music had not been given the opportunity to reach an audience . . . My aim was to try and record the blues and other music I liked and to prove whether I was right or wrong about this music. I knew, or I felt I knew, that there was a bigger audience for blues than just the black man of the mid-South. There were city markets to be reached, and I knew that whites listened to blues surreptitiously." —Escott, op. cit.

 

Phillips also functioned as a folklorist, documenting music that was fading into the past. "With the jet age coming on, with cotton-picking machines as big as a building going down the road, with society changing, I knew that this music wasn't going to be available in a pure sense forever."

 

Recording the Blues

 

video: Sam Phillips: The Man who Invented Rock & Roll Part 1 (44:22) & Part 2 (45:59)

 

His first deal, with 4 Star/Gilt Edge Records, was a song by a blind pianist from south Memphis. Lost John Hunter's "Boogie for Me Baby" [listen] was "a crude boogie blues that could pick up some southern juke coin," according to the review in Billboard, a record business trade publication.

 

In late summer 1950, Phillips launched his own record company with partner Dewey Phillips (the hot Memphis radio announcer, no relation) in order to issue and promote his own products. They called their label Phillips, but it only lasted a few weeks, issuing three hundred copies of Joe Hill Louis's "Boogie in the Park" in August 1950 [listen]

 

Phillips soon began working with Modern Records of Los Angeles, owned and operated by the Bihari brothers. Their new subsidiary, RPM Records, was looking for "new music with a down- home feel." Jules Bihari sent a guitar player from Indianola, Mississippi, to Sam Phillips to record. Riley King was already popular locally and known as B.B. King (for Blues Boy, or more likely, Black Boy). Phillips recorded King, one of the first artists on the new RPM label, from mid-1950 until mid-1951 [listen].

 

Even at this early stage in his career, Sam Phillips used recording techniques that were soon recognized as hallmarks of his records. He put up-tempo boogies on the front sides of records, slow numbers on back sides, and overamplified on faster songs to get a primitive fuzzy sound… These early recording sessions with King also document Phillips's skill as a record producer. King's version of a Tampa Red song had an explosiveness missing from the original record.

 

"Rocket '88'," a song about a hot Oldsmobile, is one of the contenders for the title "first rock 'n' roll record." It featured Jackie Brenston, the singer, and Ike Turner, the bandleader, on piano. "Rocket '88'" [listen] was released in April 1951. It hit number 1 on Billboard's R&B chart in June and eventually became the second biggest R&B hit of the year. According to Sam Phillips, "Rocket '88'" was the record that really kicked it off for me as far as broadening the base of music and opening up wider markets for our local music." Phillips resigned from WREC in June 1951 after "Rocket '88'" became a hit. — [more] on the history of “Rocket 88”

 

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 28 Mar, 1951: "[Sam Phillips] has agreements with two recording companies to locate and record hillbilly and race music. Race numbers are those tailored for the Negro trade. Sam auditions musicians with original songs. When he finds something he's sure will sell, he gets it on acetate and sends it to one of the companies. He doesn't charge the musicians anything . . . Sam may branch out one day, so he says if anyone wants to bring him a pop song, he'll be glad to look it over." • full article

 

• Sam Phillips first recorded Chester Burnett (The Howlin' Wolf) in the spring of 1951. Born near Aberdeen, Mississippi, Howlin' Wolf (1910-1976) was a singer who gave the traditional Delta blues another dimension. They recorded "Moanin' at Midnight" and "How Many More Years" [listen] in August 1951… In Phillips's estimation, the Wolf was his greatest discovery.

 

• Even though he preferred the creative side of the business, Phillips started his own record company early in 1952… With his own label, Phillips could run the business like he wanted and release records that other labels rejected.

 

"When I was leasing to other labels, they wanted me to compromise. They wanted a fuller blues sound than I did. They were selling excitement. I was recording the feel I found in the blues. I wanted to get that gut feel onto record. I realized that it was going to be much more difficult to merchandise than what Atlantic or Specialty, for example, were doing, but I was willing to go with it."

 

Phillips named his new company Sun Records and selected an eye-catching record label [photo] designed by John G. Parker (1925-2012), who also designed the tiger stripe helmet for the Cincinnati Bengals football team and packages for Alka-Seltzer and Super Bubble gum… "The sun to me—even as a kid back on the farm—was a universal kind of thing. A new day, a new opportunity." —Sam Phillips

 

The first record issued on the new Sun label (March 27, 1952), Sun number 175, was an original instrumental, "Drivin' Slow," by alto saxophonist Johnny London.

 

"Even on this first release, all the hallmarks of a Sam Phillips Sun record were in place: the raw sound, the experimental origin, the dark texture, even the trademark echo. Phillips and London created the illusion of a sax heard down a long hallway on a humid night by rigging something like a telephone booth over London's head while he played. The record's appeal had more to do with feeling than virtuosity—in short, it offered everything music buyers could expect from Sun for the remainder of the decade." [listen]

 

The first recording on the Sun label considered to be a classic was Easy, an instrumental released in March 1953 by Walter Horton (1921-1981) (Little Walter, and later, Big Walter).

 

". . . Horton played the same theme five times, with mounting intensity. By the fourth chorus, he was playing with such intensity that his harmonica sounded like a tenor saxophone. Phillips' virtuosity with tape delay echo was rarely used to better advantage: he made three instruments [harmonica, guitar, drums] sound as full as an orchestra. Any other instrument would have been redundant." [listen]

 

Sun Records had its first national hit in the spring of 1953 with "Bear Cat," [listen] which went to number 3 on the national R&B chart. It was an "answer song" to "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton aka Willie Mae Thornton (1926-1984), sung by local radio announcer Rufus Thomas. "Bear Cat" was the first record to make money for Sun Records and it put the company on the map. "Feelin' Good" by Little Junior's Blue Flames (released in July 1953), was also commercially successful, reaching number 5 on the national R&B chart.

 

Sun's next hit was "Just Walkin' in the Rain" [listen] by The Prisonaires, a black vocal group of five inmates from the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. They sang close-harmony gospel style and came under armed guard to record at 706 Union on June 1, 1953. As part of the warden's rehabilitation program, they were allowed to perform on radio, in concerts, and at the Governor's mansion, but "Just Walkin' in the Rain" was their only hit.

 

Phillips recorded a number of important blues artists in the early 1950s, including "Sleepy" John Estes, Little Milton Campbell, Rosco Gordon, Dr. Ross, Harmonica Frank Floyd, Willie Nix, Billy "The Kid" Emerson, and Bobby "Blue" Bland.

 

". . . It's safe to say that the blues has never sounded as mean, raw, or intense as it did on countless days and nights at 706 Union Avenue. Amplifiers were cranked way past the point of distortion, guitars slashed like straight razors, rickety drum kits were pounded with fury and abandon, and the stories both sung and shouted spanned the gamut of the black Southern experience…

 

"Even if he'd never issued a record on the shining yellow Sun label, even if Elvis Presley had never entered his small recording studio..., Phillips would rank as one of the most visionary record producers of our time on the basis of his early fifties blues work." —John Floyd, Sun Records: An Oral History

 

In May 1954, Phillips recorded "Cotton Crop Blues" with James Cotton on vocals and Auburn "Pat" Hare on guitar. This was "one of the truly great blues recordings," but recording of traditional blues at 706 Union fell off in 1954 with the growing popularity of R&B music. Sun Records soon became synonymous with rock 'n' roll, overshadowing Phillips's role in blues recording "and the insight that [he] brought to recording the blues. He worked hard to get the best from his artists . . . Phillips would sit behind his tape deck until sunup if he thought the musicians on the studio floor might capture the sound that he heard in his head."

 

Phillips struggled to make money in the record business for almost six years. Eventually he saw that the market at that time was too small for the kind of music he was recording.

 

"The base wasn't broad enough because of racial prejudice. It wasn't broad enough to get the amount of commercial play and general acceptance overall—not just in the South . . . Now these were basically good people, but conceptually they did not understand the kinship between black and white people in the South. So I knew what I had to do to broaden the base of acceptance." —Escott, op. cit.

 

Elvis Presley

 

Elvis Presley graduated from Humes High School in north Memphis on June 3, 1953 and went to work at M.B. Parker Machinists on July 1. Later that summer, he recorded a personal record at the Memphis Recording Service. Presley paid $3.98 for an acetate with two sides, both ballads. While he was there, Presley talked with Marion Keisker, a long-time Memphis radio personality who helped Sam Phillips run his businesses at 706 Union, and asked if she knew of a band that needed a singer.

 

He made an impression on Keisker which she later remembered well, especially his answer to her question about which hillbilly singer he sounded like: "I don't sound like nobody." At that time, Presley had a child's guitar that he played in the park, on his porch steps, and in a band with his buddies around their housing project. He soon aspired to be a member of the Songfellows, an amateur church quartet. —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Presley dropped by 706 Union a number of times after that initial meeting to see if Ms. Keisker had any leads for him. In January 1954, Presley paid for a second personal record, and tried out for a professional band that spring. Eddie Bond (1933-2003), the band leader, told him to keep driving a truck because he would never make it as a singer. Presley later revealed that Bond's rejection "broke my heart." —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

". . . There is little question that he stepped through the doorway [at 706 Union] with the idea, if not of stardom . . . at the very least of being discovered. In later years he would always say that he wanted to make a personal record "to surprise my mother." Or "I just wanted to hear what I sounded like." But, of course, if he had simply wanted to record his voice, he could have paid twenty-five cents at W. T. Grant's on Main Street . . . Instead, Elvis went to a professional facility, where a man who had been written up in the papers would hear him sing." —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Marion Keisker finally called Presley on Saturday, June 26 to set up an appointment, almost a year after he recorded his first personal disc. On a recent trip to Nashville, Phillips had gotten an acetate of a song that reminded him of Presley's voice. They worked on "Without You" [listen] for a long time that afternoon, and Phillips had Presley sing a number of other songs after his unsuccessful attempts with "Without You."

 

A week later, Phillips set Presley up with two members of the Starlite Wranglers [photos], Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (bass), and the three of them went to the studio on Monday, July 5 so Phillips could hear them on tape. Nothing special happened at the session until they took a break and Presley began fooling around and playing an old blues song by Arthur Crudup, "That's All Right [Mama] [listen]."

 

"Sam recognized it right away. He was amazed that the boy even knew Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup—nothing in any of the songs he had tried so far gave any indication that he was drawn to this kind of music at all. But this was the sort of music that Sam had long ago wholeheartedly embraced . . . And the way the boy performed it, it came across with a freshness and an exuberance, it came across with the kind of clear-eyed, unabashed originality that Sam sought in all the music that he recorded—it was "different," it was itself." —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Phillips got his friend and kindred spirit, disc jockey Dewey Phillips, to play "That's All Right" [listen] on his radio show "Red Hot and Blue," then near the height of its popularity. The response was immediate—hundreds of phone calls and telegrams. Dewey played the song a number of times that night and also interviewed Presley during the show.

 

By the time the record was pressed and ready for release, there were 6,000 orders for it locally. Sun record number 209 was released on Monday, July 17, 1954. Phillips had been "looking for something that nobody could categorize," and this song did not sound exclusively black or white or country or pop. Initially, many people who heard the song thought that Presley was a black man. —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Elvis Presley's first big public appearance with Scotty and Bill, the Blue Moon Boys, was on Friday, July 30 at Memphis's outdoor amphitheater in Overton Park [photos]. The show featured Slim Whitman, a star from the Louisiana Hayride, which some called the Grand Ole Opry's "farm club." He drew a hillbilly crowd, but they went wild when Elvis shook and wiggled his legs, his natural way of performing.

 

The new record made Billboard's regional charts by the end of August, but it was the B side that was more popular. Phillips backed "That's All Right" with an unorthodox version of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" [listen], a waltz that was a hit in 1946 for Bill Monroe, country music's elder statesman. By early September, "Blue Moon" was number 1 on the Memphis C&W chart and "That's All Right" was number 7. —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Sun released Presley's second record in late September. "It was . . . an even bolder declaration of intent than the first, especially the strident blues number 'Good Rockin' Tonight' [listen], which rocked more confidently than anything they could have imagined in those first, uncertain days in the studio." The original jump blues version was written and recorded by Roy Brown in 1947 [listen]

 

Presley's growing popularity enabled Phillips to arrange a guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry for October 2, even though the Opry had never before scheduled a performer at such an early stage in his career. The performance of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill received a "polite, but somewhat tepid, reception," and the Opry's manager told Phillips that Presley "just did not fit the Opry mold."

 

It was a big disappointment for Elvis. But soon they were off to Louisiana for Presley's first appearance on the Louisiana Hayride, "the Opry's more innovative rival in Shreveport" that had a show every Saturday night. On the third Saturday of the month the show broadcast with a 50,000 watt signal that reached up to twenty-eight states.48 After only one guest appearance, Presley signed a standard one year contract to be one of the Hayride's regular members, and he and his band quit their day jobs. —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

For the next year, Elvis Presley and the Blue Moon Boys toured almost constantly... Presley took his first airplane flight and first trip to New York City on March 23, 1955 to try out for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts contest, but he did not pass the audition. [A] tour with Hank Snow/Jamboree Attractions began on May 1 in New Orleans, visiting twenty cities in three weeks, including a number of stops in Florida. There was a "riot" backstage after the concert in Jacksonville …

 

The audiences had never heard music like Presley played before, and they had never seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance, which soon led to a transformation on stage. People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the "ferocity of his performance,"49 and the crowd's reaction to it.

 

Even in the early days, Elvis almost always stole the show from the headliners, and concert lineups had to be rearranged accordingly. Nobody followed Elvis. Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time in Odessa, Texas: "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing . . . I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."—Guralnick, op. cit.

 

"'He's the new rage,' said a Louisiana radio executive… 'Sings hillbilly in R&B time. Can you figure that out? He wears pink pants and a black coat . . .'" —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Elvis caused a great commotion everywhere he went. Throughout the South, Presley had girls screaming and fainting and chasing after him.

 

Sam Phillips was also on the road constantly after the Overton Park performance in July 1954, promoting the new records to distributors, disc jockeys, record store owners, and jukebox operators. His experiences, however, were entirely different. Time and again, disc jockeys who were old friends and/or long-standing business associates told Phillips they could not play the Presley records. A country deejay said "Sam, they'll run me out of town." To an R&B deejay, "That's All Right" was a country song. A major pop station disc jockey told Phillips, "your music is just so ragged. I just can't handle it right now. Maybe later on." —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

WELO in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley's hometown, would not even play the record, in spite of many requests from teenagers, because the deejay did not like the new music. —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Sam Phillips persevered in spite of all the rejection he was getting, and kept trying to turn it around. "I needed the attention that I got from the people that hated what I was doing, that acted like: 'Here is somebody trying to thrust junk on us and classify it as our music.'"—Guralnick, op. cit.

 

"He was a man swept up by a belief, in a sound and in an idea. And as discouraged as he might sometimes get, as harsh as the reality of selling this new music might be, he never strayed from his belief, he never allowed himself to be distracted from his main goal. Which was to get them to listen." —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Phillips could feel a revolution was on the way. There were already lots of country boys coming to his studio to play the new music, which initially got the name rockabilly. "Sam knew that a day was coming . . . when the music would prevail." —Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Presley was still a regional sensation and unknown to the national market when he got the record industry's attention. By the summer of 1955, almost all the major and independent record labels were inquiring about him. Sam Phillips had mixed feelings about selling Presley's contract, but his operations could not accommodate the Presley phenomenon, his finances were very tight, and he had other artists who needed his attention.

 

Presley's parents signed a contract in August which soon forced the issue. Col. Tom Parker (1909-1997) became "special adviser to Elvis Presley." He was the head of Jamboree Attractions, one of the major promoters and bookers of country and western talent, and had booked Presley on the Hank Snow package tours earlier that year. At that time, Parker was known as the best promoter in the business. In October Parker asked Phillips to name his price for Presley's contract, and Parker made sure that it was met.

 

The deal was signed at 706 Union Avenue on November 21, 1955. RCA-Victor bought Elvis Presley's contract from Sun Records for $35,000, plus $5,000 in back royalties owed to Presley. The story ran in the Memphis Press-Scimitar the next day:

 

"Elvis Presley, 20, Memphis recording star and entertainer who zoomed into big- time and the big money almost overnight, has been released from his contract with Sun Record Co. of Memphis . . . . Phillips and RCA officials did not reveal terms but said the money involved is probably the highest ever paid for a contract release for a country-western recording artist. 'I feel Elvis is one of the most talented youngsters today,' Phillips said, 'and by releasing his contract to RCA-Victor we will give him the opportunity of entering the largest organization of its kind in the world, so his talents can be given the fullest opportunity.'" —quoted in Guralnick, op. cit.

 

Sam Phillips never regretted his decision to sell Elvis Presley's contract. In many ways, Presley's departure was like a new beginning for Sun Records. Many country musicians aspiring to play rockabilly began to make their way to 706 Union Avenue. As Johnny Cash said many years later, "Elvis was a beacon that brought us all there." —Peter Guralnick, "Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll," VHS (A&E Biography, 2000)

 

Sun Studio

 

After Sam Phillips moved his companies to the new location on Madison Avenue, 706 Union Avenue housed a number of different businesses in the 1960s and 1970s, including a barber shop, an auto parts store, and a scuba shop. The building was vacant in 1985 when it became the site of a family reunion of sorts. An album entitled “Class of '55: Memphis Rock 'n' Roll Homecoming“ was recorded here to celebrate and remember the "Class of '55" on their 30th "anniversary." Record producer Chips Moman convened Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison to record together for the first time at the Sun studio in September 1985.

 

Not long after that event, 706 Union Avenue became a stop for visitors on tours to Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, which opened to the public in 1982. The building opened as the Sun Studio for tours in 1987—the name Sun Records and the original Sun record label design still belong to Shelby Singleton, who bought the company in 1969. The current property owner also purchased the adjacent two-story brick building that housed a café and a boarding house in the 1950s. That building now serves as a soda shop, gallery, and gift shop for visitors to Sun Studio.

 

The Sun Studio also operates as a full service 24-track recording studio for professional musicians, as well as anyone who wants to make a personal record, just like Elvis. In 1987, the Irish rock band U2 recorded several songs here for their album "Rattle and Hum," including "When Love Comes to Town" featuring B.B. King. Several hundred thousand visitors have made the pilgrimage to this extraordinary place.

 

• National Register # 03001031, 2003 • designated a National Historic Landmark, 2003

Item nº 53206.

Renault 4L "Guardia Civil" (España).

Escala 1/43.

Mondo S.p.A. (Italia).

Made in China.

Año 2014 (?)

 

More info about Mondo Motors 1:43 diecast collections:

www.mondomotors.org/products_category.cfm?id=827

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Renault 4

 

"La Renault 4 (couramment appelée 4L) est une petite voiture populaire de grande diffusion de conception simple et pratique. Ce fut aussi la première application de la traction sur une voiture automobile de tourisme de la marque Renault après que cette technique a été adoptée sur l'Estafette en 1958.

 

Elle est construite d'août 1961 à la fin 1992 dans 28 pays, initialement avec la Dauphine sur l'île Seguin à Boulogne-Billancourt ainsi qu'à l'usine Renault de Flins, en Espagne (par Fasa-Renault), en Argentine par IKA-Renault, en Italie par Alfa Romeo (sous licence), au Maroc, à Madagascar, en Afrique du Sud, puis en Slovénie pour les dernières années de sa production.

 

La Renault 4 connut un grand succès auprès des PME, des artisans, de la gendarmerie (c'était l'une des voitures françaises de l'époque qui permettait de conduire avec le képi sur la tête), mais également auprès des PTT, de France Télécom ou EdF dans sa version fourgonnette F4 ; ces contrats lui donnèrent une très grande visibilité.

 

En France, la Renault 4 fut en tête des ventes de 1962 à 1965 (succédant à la Renault Dauphine), puis de 1967 à 1968. Elle reste aujourd'hui [Quand ?] la deuxième voiture française la plus vendue avec 8 135 424 exemplaires derrière la Peugeot 206 et juste devant le duo Renault 9 et 11."

(...)

 

"Moteurs utilisés sur la Renault 4 au fil des années4 :

 

- 603 cm3 (49 x 80) : puissance 23 ch et couple de 4,3 mkg. Monté sur R3 (modèles 1962) ;

- 747 cm3 (54,5 x 80) : puissance 27,6 ch à 30 ch et couple de 5,1 à 5,6 mkg ;

- 782 cm3 (55 x 80) à partir des modèles 1972 : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,4 mkg ;

- 845 cm3 (58 x 80) avec option 5 CV : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,9 mkg. Montée en série pour 1983 ;

- 956 cm3 (65 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 6,2 mkg. Monté sur les derniers modèles TL Savane à partir de mai 1986 ;

- 1 108 cm3 (70 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 7,5 mkg. Équipe en série la 4 GTL à partir du début 1978."

(...)

 

Versions

 

- La R3

"La R3 est une déclinaison économique avec le petit « moteur Billancourt » de 603 cm³ « sous-alésé » dérivé du moteur de la 4 CV. (...) Elle ne fut produite que de 1961 à 1962, le nombre total d'exemplaires construits varie selon les estimations entre 2 526 et 2 571, ce qui en fait un modèle extrêmement recherché par les collectionneurs aujourd'hui."

 

- La R4 L

"À côté de la R3 et de la R4 de base — sensiblement équivalente à la R3 dans sa présentation — il existait une déclinaison « Luxe » dite R4 L, elle se caractérisait par sa troisième vitre latérale et différents accessoires et baguettes inox, qui la rendait plus luxueuse.

Cette version, qui s'appela bientôt R4 L Export, fut la plus vendue. À tel point que l'appellation générique de la Renault 4 deviendra progressivement 4L. Par rapport à la version de base, qui possédait des sièges du type « strapontins suspendus » de même type que la 2 CV, la R4 L Export possédait des sièges plus élaborés et plus confortables (séparés à l'avant) et une banquette arrière rabattable."

 

- La Parisienne (1963)

 

- Les R4 Export, 4 TL et TL Savane

"Hormis le modèle de base, la Renault traverse la fin des années 1960 et les années 1970 sous la forme de la R4 « Export », qui devint la 4 TL pour 1976. (...)

En 1986, le modèle TL est rebaptisé « TL Savane » (...) En 1989, Renault équipe ce modèle du « pack sécurité » (...) "

 

- La 4 GTL

"Début 1978, la 4 GTL reprend la formule qui a fait le succès de la Renault 5 GTL : un gros « moteur Cléon-Fonte » de 1 108 cm3 retravaillé pour consommer moins (5,4 litres aux 100) et des bandes de protection latérales grises avec pare-chocs et crosses avant assortis. La version GTL supplantera rapidement la 4 TL.

En mai 1986, lors du remaniement de la gamme, la GTL devient « GTL Clan », (...)

En 1989, Renault revient à de plus banales jantes tôles, et équipe ce modèle du même « pack sécurité » que la version TL Savane.

Trop âgée pour pouvoir respecter les normes antipollution qui doivent arriver en 1993 (pot catalytique obligatoire), la production de Renault 4 est arrêtée fin 1992 avec une série « Bye-Bye » de R4 GTL Clan, des modèles numérotés de 1 à 1 000 devenus collectors."

 

- Séries spéciales

"Dès le début de la production, Renault propose des modèles à diffusion limitées, afin de relancer les ventes, ou encore rajeunir l'image de la voiture. Plusieurs séries spéciales sont ainsi créées : la « Safari » (1976), la « Jogging » (1981), la « Sixties » (1985) avec sa sellerie flashy et ses deux toits ouvrants, la « Carte jeune » (1991)...

Durant les années 1960, d'autres modèles nettement plus rares ont été produits, tels la « Plein air », la « Parisienne » ou encore des adaptations 4x4 produites par Sinpar."

(...)

 

Source: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

 

More info:

www.renaultclassiccarclub.com/ModelsRegister/r4_history.html

www.r4-4l.com/tous-les-modeles-de-4l/histoire-de-la-4l/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

50 aniversario del Renault 4L en España [1964-2014]

 

Emilio Salmoral

Periodista especializado en el mundo del motor. Colaborador en AUTO BILD

 

02/05/2014 - 10:35

 

"Aunque el Renault 4L llevaba fabricándose desde finales de 1963 (se hicieron 250 unidades), hasta el año siguiente no comenzaron las primeras entregas a los clientes.

Pero el Renault 4 no era un coche desconocido, ya que llevaba desde 1961 fabricándose en Francia.

Es posible que circularan algunas unidades construidas en el país vecino, pero tuvieron que pasar tres años para fabricar en España.

Por cierto, en Portugal también se construyó en la planta de Guarda y los aficionados sienten devoción por él.

 

Respecto a la versión francesa, el Renault 4L de FASA es diferente. Los parachoques son de un diseño distinto y tiene una especie de bigote en la placa de la matrícula posterior. Además, los coches españoles tampoco tienen los intermitentes laterales que sí tenían los franceses.

La historia nos ha demostrado que lo que buscaban los ingenieros españoles era, sobre todo, una mecánica con mayores capacidades. Por ello, nuestro 4L utilizó un motor de 845 centímetros cúbicos y 30 CV de potencia con los que podía ofrecer unas capacidades dinámicas superiores que los del 0,7 litros que también se vendía en Francia como versión de acceso.

Asimismo, todos los coches comercializados en España tienen un sistema eléctrico de 12 voltios que permite una mayor iluminación.

En 1965, Renault lanza al mercado la versión Super que ofrecía a su conductor unos asientos más lujosos y en 1967 empieza a utilizar los paragolpes del Renault 8."

(...)

 

"En 1968 se introduce al mercado el primer restyling del Renault 4. Las principales diferencias son una parrilla totalmente nueva que se hace evidente en todo el frontal del vehículo.

Pero los mayores cambios se encuentran en la mecánica: el R4 abandona el motor originario del 4/4 y estrena el tipo Sierra del Renault 8 que ofrecía una elevadísima fiabilidad. Con este bloque, la potencia se incrementó hasta los 35 CV. También era muy alabado por los conductores de su época el excelente sincronizado de su caja de cambios.

 

Así se mantuvo el Renault 4 hasta que en 1978 se sometió a su segunda puesta al día. La bonita parrilla de aluminio dejó paso a una de plástico; los intermitentes adoptaron el color naranja y ganaron en tamaño. Por cierto, volvió a cambiar de paragolpes. Como el Renault 8 ya no se fabricaba, recurrió a los que usaba el Renault 4 francés de 1968.

En 1982 se produjo un hecho histórico, ya que el 4L adoptó el motor de 1,1 litros con 40 CV. Este bloque es legendario para la marca francesa, ya que lo han usado coches como el 8 TS, Renault 5 o Twingo.

 

Pero el interior del Renault 4L seguía siendo el mismo y muchos conductores estaban cansados de ese salpicadero de tono beige que era demasiado simple.

En 1983 FASA decidió darle a su coche un aspecto visual más moderno y apostó el plástico negro, una renovada instrumentación y unos asientos más cómodos que llegaron a incluir hasta reposacabezas.

El último Renault 4 se fabricó en Valladolid en 1989.

Aunque el coche se comercializó hasta 1992, el que quería un 4L tenía que comprarse la versión Clan que estaba fabricada en Eslovenia y no tenía la calidad de construcción de nuestro paisano castellano."

(...)

 

Fuente: www.autobild.es/reportajes/50-aniversario-renault-4l-espa...

 

More info:

elautomovilenespana.blogspot.com.es/2010/06/renault-4-ii....

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

www.ocio.net/motor/historia-del-renault-4-un-automovil-un...

 

Circa 1977. Dr. Walter Edelman Jr., Mechanical Engineering professor is shown next to a Ford Falcon on the dynamometer that's located between E3 ad E4. I'm unsure why Dr. Edelman wore coveralls while the assisting technicians bore regular street clothes.

 

A student favorite, Dr. Edelman was not only a competent instructor, but one who enjoyed conversing with his students about many topics. He had keen observations about technical matters that he conveyed to us. For example, during one of our Engineering Day open house events, there was on display a Honda Civic station wagon that had its entire roof covered with a panel full of solar electric cells. Of course the car generated wide interest among guests at the open house. Later on that week during class, Dr. Edelman discussed the practicality of that system to generate power for the car. On the chalkboard he wrote down a generous estimation of the square footage of the solar panels. He then multiplied that area by the maximum specific rate of solar energy that reaches the earth per unit area. To be generous again, he assumed 100% conversion from solar to electrical energy (a thermodynamic impossibility, but again, this was a calculation for demonstration purposes). The result of the calculation was that at best, the solar panel could only generate a fraction of one horsepower. Thus powering even a light weight car such as that Honda Civic exclusively on real time generated power was far from being realistic.

 

The Falcon displays a California plate with the letter 'E' inscribed within a diamond shape, for vehicles that would be Exempt from registration fees.

I have zero ability for choosing the right amount of pasta to cook. I err on the side of cooking enough for an army.

 

141 Likes on Instagram

 

20 Comments on Instagram:

 

mrblanc: I hope so @hellolunchlady

 

mrblanc: The Italians measure it in your grip. One ten cent size grip one person ... @hellolunchlady

 

laurabeardwood: ha. this sounds very familiar. & always chuck a bit more in at the last minute worried that it might not be enough 😏

 

ivylovesjack: Me too!

 

trishortreat: I make too much intentionally and then creatively repurpose the leftover pasta; even the chooks can benefit from my over estimation ;)

 

smcq: I like the meme that makes me chuckle: "I made pasta. So you and 49 of your friends are invited." :-)

 

sheriberibilli: I do too. But never know what to do with the left overs :/

 

noonbot: What camera do you use?

  

A round up of some visits from nearly a decade ago when I just posted general shots, to my surprise I took shots of details too, and didn't post them at the time.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

Monday 10th September 2012

I can now reveal that being on Holiday is officially better than being at work. It is a Monday morning, and we have bottled another batch of beer, and i have mopped the floor as we did manage to mess it up, slightly. The house now smells like a brewery, which would not be a bad thing only it was just eight in the morning, and it is a tad early for beer, even for me. In an exciting move, we are heading to Tesco in a while to get ingredients for out Christmas cakes.

 

Yes, cakes. One is never enough. A couple of years ago, we tried one in November and had to bake another one to replace it. We don't marzipan or ice them, and just leave them with their cakey goodness and Christmas spiciness.

 

Friday seemed to go on forever until it got to five to four and it was time to head home. The technicians had come ashore early and gone home, so I had the office to myself, therefore my hearty laughing at the Kermode and Mayo film review went unheard except by me.

 

So, off to Tesco for a week's shopping, and ended up getting enough stuff to last the weekend. And once that was done and paid for, loaded up the car and back home and now the holiday could really begin.

 

And Friday night was spent watching football. Yes, now the Olympics and Paralympics are coming to an end, it means we must return, ashamed like a unfaithful lover to the old dependable. And England began their World Cup qualifying campaign with an away game against Moldova. I did have to ask Jools to Google Moldova to find where it was, as I really didn't have a clue.

 

Anyway, it is behind the fridge just to the lest of Romania, apparently.

 

And England strung together at least 5 passes, played well, and scored 5 goals; and yet managed to look unconvincing switching off several times, just before half time and in the second half and could have easily conceded goals. Just to remind you, by some quirk, England are currently ranked the third best team IN THE WORLD, which I suppose goes to show just how much you should trust information coming out of FIFA towers.

 

Saturday morning after breakfast we headed to Mongeham for some foraging action, so we can make jam and jellies. We knew of a footpath behind a garage that is just lined with plum and greengage trees. We picked a couple of pounds and then headed on up the A20 and M20 to head to The Weald for a tour of 'interesting' churches.

 

Each year English Heritage organises a long weekend where many buildings are open for people like us to visit and photograph. Last spring we visited St Lawrence at Mereworth; and while is it a wonderfully beautiful church, the doors were locked and we wanted to see inside.

 

First of all we headed inside the M25 to a tiny, but beautiful village on the edge of the Weald where stockbrokers and hedge fund managers have their homes with fine views onto the Garden of england. All along the main road huge gates with security cameras guarded the mock-Tudor mansions hidden behind mature trees.

 

We turned off down a narrow lane and headed towards to small village of Trottiscliffe; which is not pronounced the way it is spelt so to make the unwary visitor appear stupid. It is pronounced 'Trozli', if Wiki is to be believed.

 

At the end of a long dead end road leading to a row of cottages and an old stable block is the church. I don't think i have ever seen a church in a more perfect location, it is one of those places that you have to be going as you'll never just pass it.

 

There was a churchwarden waiting at the door and happy to answer questions and tell us the history of the church. Dominating the tiny church is, what I now know to be from Westminister Abbey is the biggest pulpit I have seen outside a er, cathedral.

 

We take our leave and head to Mereworth.

 

We were the only visitors at the church, we parked the car on the verge outside, took in the glorious design of the church before going in. First thing you do see is a pair of spiral staircases; one to the gallery and the other to the bell tower. And straight ahead is a simple wooden door leading to the main body of the church.

 

I won't try to describe the church, please use the link on the pictures to go to my Flickrstream. The design is glorious, and looking pristine as it has just been restored to its former glory. Or original glory.

 

Once again there was a churchwarden to greet us, offer us refreshments and answer any questions.

 

-------------------------------------------

  

One of the few eighteenth-century churches in Kent, built in 1746 by the 7th Earl of Westmoreland. Surprisingly for so late a date the name of the architect is not known although it is in the style of Colen Campbell who designed the nearby castle, but as he died in 1722 it is probably by someone in his office. The main feature of the church is a tall stone steeple with four urns at the top of the tower, whilst the body of the church is a plain rectangular box consisting of an aisled nave and chancel. Inside is an excellent display of eighteenth-century interior decoration - especially fine being the curved ceiling which is painted with trompe l'oeil panels. At the west end is the galleried pew belonging to the owners of Mereworth Castle - it has organ pipes painted on its rear wall. The south-west chapel contains memorials brought here from the old church which stood near the castle, including one to a fifteenth-century Lord Bergavenny, and Sir Thomas Fane (d. 1589). The latter monument has a superb top-knot! The church contains much heraldic stained glass of sixteenth-century date, best seen with binoculars early in the morning. Of Victorian date is the excellent Raising of Lazarus window, installed in 1889 by the firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne. In the churchyard is the grave of Charles Lucas, the first man to be awarded the Victoria Cross, while serving on the Hecla during the Crimean War.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Mereworth

 

-------------------------------------------

 

MEREWORTH.

EASTWARD from West, or Little Peckham, lies Mereworth, usually called Merrud. In Domesday it is written Marourde, and in the Textus Roffensis, MÆRUURTHA, and MERANWYRTHE.

 

THE PARISH of Mereworth is within the district of the Weald, being situated southward of the quarry hills. It is exceedingly pleasant, as well from its naturalsituation, as from the buildings, avenues, and other ornamental improvements made throughout it by the late earl of Westmoreland, nor do those made at Yokes by the late Mr. Master contribute a little to the continued beauty of this scene. The turnpike road crosses this parish through the vale from Maidstone, towards Hadlow and Tunbridge, on each side of which is a fine avenue of oaks, with a low neatly cut quick hedge along the whole of it, which leaves an uninterrupted view over the house, park, and grounds of lord le Despencer, the church with its fine built spire, and the seat of Yokes, and beyond it an extensive country, along the valley to Tunbridge, making altogether a most beautiful and luxuriant prospect.

 

Mereworth house is situated in the park, which rises finely wooded behind it, at a small distance from the high road, having a fine sheet of water in the front of it, being formed from a part of a stream which rises at a small distance above Yokes, and dividing itself into two branches, one of them runs in front of Mereworth house as above mentioned, and from thence through Watringbury, towards the Medway at Bow-bridge; the other branch runs more southward to East Peckham, and thence into the Medway at a small distance above Twiford bridge.

 

Mereworth-house was built after a plan of Palladio, designed for a noble Vicentine gentleman, Paolo Almerico, an ecclesiastic and referendary to two popes, who built it in his own country about a quarter of a mile distance from the city of Venice, in a situation pleasant and delightful, and nearly like this; being watered in front with a river, and in the back encompassed with the most pleasant risings, which form a kind of theatre, and abound with large and stately groves of oak and other trees; from the top of these risings there are most beautiful views, some of which are limited, and others extend so as to be terminated only by the horizon. Mereworth house is built in a moat, and has four fronts, having each a portico, but the two side ones are filled up; under the floor of the hall and best apartments, are rooms and conveniences for the servants. The hall, which is in the middle, forms a cupola, and receives its light from above, and is formed with a double case, between which the smoke is conveyed through the chimnies to the center of it at top. The wings are at a small distance from the house, and are elegantly designed. In the front of the house is an avenue, cut through the woods, three miles in length towards Wrotham-heath, and finished with incredible expence and labour by lord Westmoreland, for a communication with the London road there: throughout the whole, art and nature are so happily blended together, as to render it a most delightful situation.

 

In the western part of this parish, on the high road is the village, where at Mereworth cross it turns short off to the southward towards Hadlow and Tunbridge, at a small distance further westward is the church and parsonage, the former is a conspicuous ornament to all the neighbouring country throughout the valley; hence the ground rises to Yokes, which is most pleasantly situated on the side of a hill, commanding a most delightful and extensive prospect over the Weald, and into Surry and Sussex.

 

Towards the north this parish rises up to the ridge of hills, called the Quarry-hills, (and there are now in them, though few in number, several of the Martin Cats, the same as those at Hudson's Bay) over which is the extensive tract of wood-land, called the Herst woods, in which so late as queen Elizabeth's reign, there were many wild swine, with which the whole Weald formerly abounded, by reason of the plenty of pannage from the acorns throughout it. (fn. 1)

 

¶The soil of this parish is very fertile, being the quarry stone thinly covered with a loam, throughout the northern part of it; but in the southern or lower parts, as well as in East Peckham adjoining, it is a fertile clay, being mostly pasture and exceeding rich grazing land, and the largest oxen perhaps at any place in this part of England are bred and fatted on them, the weight of some of them having been, as I have been informed, near three hundred stone.

  

THIS PLACE, at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, was part of the possessions of Hamo Vicecomes, under the general title of whose lands it is thus entered in that book.

 

In Littlefield hundred. Hamo holds Marourde. Norman held it of king Edward, and then, and now, it was and is taxed at two sulings. The arable land is ninecarucates. In demesne there are two, and twenty-eight villeins, with fifteen borderers, having ten carucates. There is a church and ten servants, and two mills of ten shillings, and two fisheries of two shillings. There are twenty acres of meadow, and as much wood as is sufficient for the pannage of sixty hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, it was worth twelve pounds, and afterwards ten pounds, now nineteen pounds.

 

This Hamo Vicecomes before-mentioned was Hamo de Crevequer, who was appointed Vicecomes, or sheriff of Kent, soon after his coming over hither with the Conqueror, which office he held till his death in the reign of king Henry I.

 

¶In the reign of king Henry II. Mereworth was in the possession of a family, which took their surname from it, and held it as two knights fees, of the earls of Clare, as of their honour of Clare.

 

Roger, son of Eustace de Mereworth, possessed it in the above reign, and then brought a quare impedit against the prior of. Leeds, for the advowson of the church of Mereworth. (fn. 3)

 

William de Mereworth is recorded among those Kentish knights, who assisted king Richard at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, upon which account it is probable the cross-croslets were added to the paternal arms of this family.

  

MEREWORTH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester and deanry of Malling.

 

The church was dedicated to St. Laurence. It was an antient building, and formerly stood where the west wing of Mereworth-house, made use of for the stables, now stands. It was pulled down by John, late earl of Westmoreland, when he rebuilt that house, and in lieu of it he erected, about half a mile westward from the old one, in the center of the village, the present church, a most elegant building, with a beautiful spire steeple, and a handsome portico in the front of it, with pillars of the Corinthian order. The whole of it is composed of different sorts of stone; and the east window is handsomely glazed with painted glass, collected by him for this purpose.

 

In the reign of king Henry II. the advowson of this church was the property of Roger de Mereworth, between whom and the prior and convent of Ledes, in this county, there had been much dispute, concerning the patronage of it: at length both parties submitted their interest to Gilbert, bishop of Rochester, who decreed, that the advowson of it should remain to Roger de Mereworth; and he further granted, with his consent, and that of Martin then parson of it, to the prior and convent, the sum of forty shillings, in the name of a perpetual benefice, and not in the name of a pension, in perpetual alms, to be received yearly for ever, from the parson of it. (fn. 13)

 

The prior and the convent of Ledes afterwards, anno 12 Henry VII. released to Hugh Walker, rector of this church, their right and claim to this pension, and all their right and claim in the rectory, by reason of it, or by any other means whatsoever.

 

In the reign of king Henry VI. the rector and parishioners of this church petitioned the bishop of Ro chester, to change the day of the feast of the dedication of it, which being solemnized yearly on the 4th day of June, and the moveable seasts of Pentecost, viz. of the sacred Trinity, or Corpus Christi, very often happening on it; the divine service used on the feasts of dedications could not in some years be celebrated, but was of necessity deferred to another day, that these solemnities of religion and of the fair might not happen together. Upon which the bishop, in 1439, transferred the feast to the Monday next after the exaltation of the Holy Cross, enjoining all and singular the rectors, and their curates, as well as the parishioners from time to time to observe it accordingly as such. And to encourage the parishioners and others to resort to it on that day, he granted to such as did, forty days remission of their sins.

 

Soon after the above-mentioned dispute between Roger de Mereworth and the prior and convent of Ledes, the church of Mereworth appears to have been given to the priory of Black Canons, at Tunbridge. (fn. 14) And it remained with the above-mentioned priory till its dissolution in the 16th year of king Henry VIII. a bull having been obtained from the pope, with the king's leave, for that purpose. After which the king, in his 17th year, granted that priory, with others then suppressed for the like purpose, together with all their manors, lands, and possessions, to cardinal Wolsey, for the better endowment of his college, called Cardinal college, in Oxford. But four years afterwards, the cardinal being cast in a præmunire; all the estates of that college, which for want of time had not been firmly settled on it, became forfeited to the crown. (fn. 15) After which, the king granted the patronage of the church of Mereworth, to Sir George Nevill, lord Abergavenny, whose descendant Henry, lord Abergavenny, died possessed of it in the 29th year of queen Elizabeth, leaving an only daughter and heir Mary, married to Sir Thomas Fane, who in her right possessed it. Since which it has continued in the same owners, that the manor of Mereworth has, and is as such now in the patronage of the right hon. Thomas, lord le Despencer.

 

It is valued in the king's books at 14l. 2s. 6d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 8s. 3d.

 

¶It appears by a valuation of this church, and a terrier of the lands belonging to it, subscribed by the rector, churchwardens, and inhabitants, in 1634, that there belonged to it, a parsonage-house, with a barn, &c. a field called Parsonage field, a close, and a garden, two orchards, four fields called Summerfourds, Ashfield, the Coney-yearth, and Millfield, and the herbage of the church-yard, containing in the whole about thirty acres, that the house and some of the land where James Gostlinge then dwelt, paid to the rector for lord's rent twelve-pence per annum; that the houses and land where Thomas Stone and Henry Filtness then dwelt, paid two-pence per annum; that there was paid to the rector the tithe of all corn, and all other grain, as woud, would, &c. and all hay, tithe of all coppice woods and hops, and all other predial tithes usually paid, as wool, and lambs, and all predials, &c. in the memory of man; that all tithes of a parcel of land called Old-hay, some four or five miles from the church, but yet within the parish, containing three hundred acres, more or less; and the tithe of a meadow plot lying towards the lower side of Hadlow, yet in Mereworth, containing by estimation twelve acres, more or less, commonly called the Wish, belonged to this church.

 

The parsonage-house lately stood at a small distance north-eastward from Mereworth-house; but obstructing the view from the front of it, the late lord le Despencer obtained a faculty to pull the whole of it down, and to build a new one of equal dimensions, and add to it a glebe of equal quantity to that of the scite and appurtenances of the old parsonage, in exchange. Accordingly the old parsonage was pulled down in 1779, and a new one erected on a piece of land allotted for the purpose about a quarter of a mile westward from the church, for the residence of the rector of Mereworth and his successors.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol5/pp70-90

Châssis n°ZA9BB02E0RCD39017

 

Estimation :

800.000 - 1.200.000 €

 

Vendu 904.800 €

This nice young couple (probably from the 1930's by me estimation, though there's no information on the back to verify or refute it) seemed a fitting upload for Valentine's day. I know I'm a little late to the party, but, according to my computer, I'm slipping in under the wire by eleven minutes. I'd assume this was taken in a photobooth somewhere and it's certainly been through the ringer a bit between there and the local antique store I found it in, but i think it adds to its character.

 

They both look awfully young (though he looks a bit younger) and he seems a bit awkward with his arm around her she does appear to be sitting on his lap, though, so he can't be doing everything wrong.

Item nº 53206.

Renault 4L "Guardia Civil" (España).

Escala 1/43.

Mondo S.p.A. (Italia).

Made in China.

Año 2014 (?)

 

More info about Mondo Motors 1:43 diecast collections:

www.mondomotors.org/products_category.cfm?id=827

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Renault 4

 

"La Renault 4 (couramment appelée 4L) est une petite voiture populaire de grande diffusion de conception simple et pratique. Ce fut aussi la première application de la traction sur une voiture automobile de tourisme de la marque Renault après que cette technique a été adoptée sur l'Estafette en 1958.

 

Elle est construite d'août 1961 à la fin 1992 dans 28 pays, initialement avec la Dauphine sur l'île Seguin à Boulogne-Billancourt ainsi qu'à l'usine Renault de Flins, en Espagne (par Fasa-Renault), en Argentine par IKA-Renault, en Italie par Alfa Romeo (sous licence), au Maroc, à Madagascar, en Afrique du Sud, puis en Slovénie pour les dernières années de sa production.

 

La Renault 4 connut un grand succès auprès des PME, des artisans, de la gendarmerie (c'était l'une des voitures françaises de l'époque qui permettait de conduire avec le képi sur la tête), mais également auprès des PTT, de France Télécom ou EdF dans sa version fourgonnette F4 ; ces contrats lui donnèrent une très grande visibilité.

 

En France, la Renault 4 fut en tête des ventes de 1962 à 1965 (succédant à la Renault Dauphine), puis de 1967 à 1968. Elle reste aujourd'hui [Quand ?] la deuxième voiture française la plus vendue avec 8 135 424 exemplaires derrière la Peugeot 206 et juste devant le duo Renault 9 et 11."

(...)

 

"Moteurs utilisés sur la Renault 4 au fil des années4 :

 

- 603 cm3 (49 x 80) : puissance 23 ch et couple de 4,3 mkg. Monté sur R3 (modèles 1962) ;

- 747 cm3 (54,5 x 80) : puissance 27,6 ch à 30 ch et couple de 5,1 à 5,6 mkg ;

- 782 cm3 (55 x 80) à partir des modèles 1972 : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,4 mkg ;

- 845 cm3 (58 x 80) avec option 5 CV : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,9 mkg. Montée en série pour 1983 ;

- 956 cm3 (65 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 6,2 mkg. Monté sur les derniers modèles TL Savane à partir de mai 1986 ;

- 1 108 cm3 (70 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 7,5 mkg. Équipe en série la 4 GTL à partir du début 1978."

(...)

 

Versions

 

- La R3

"La R3 est une déclinaison économique avec le petit « moteur Billancourt » de 603 cm³ « sous-alésé » dérivé du moteur de la 4 CV. (...) Elle ne fut produite que de 1961 à 1962, le nombre total d'exemplaires construits varie selon les estimations entre 2 526 et 2 571, ce qui en fait un modèle extrêmement recherché par les collectionneurs aujourd'hui."

 

- La R4 L

"À côté de la R3 et de la R4 de base — sensiblement équivalente à la R3 dans sa présentation — il existait une déclinaison « Luxe » dite R4 L, elle se caractérisait par sa troisième vitre latérale et différents accessoires et baguettes inox, qui la rendait plus luxueuse.

Cette version, qui s'appela bientôt R4 L Export, fut la plus vendue. À tel point que l'appellation générique de la Renault 4 deviendra progressivement 4L. Par rapport à la version de base, qui possédait des sièges du type « strapontins suspendus » de même type que la 2 CV, la R4 L Export possédait des sièges plus élaborés et plus confortables (séparés à l'avant) et une banquette arrière rabattable."

 

- La Parisienne (1963)

 

- Les R4 Export, 4 TL et TL Savane

"Hormis le modèle de base, la Renault traverse la fin des années 1960 et les années 1970 sous la forme de la R4 « Export », qui devint la 4 TL pour 1976. (...)

En 1986, le modèle TL est rebaptisé « TL Savane » (...) En 1989, Renault équipe ce modèle du « pack sécurité » (...) "

 

- La 4 GTL

"Début 1978, la 4 GTL reprend la formule qui a fait le succès de la Renault 5 GTL : un gros « moteur Cléon-Fonte » de 1 108 cm3 retravaillé pour consommer moins (5,4 litres aux 100) et des bandes de protection latérales grises avec pare-chocs et crosses avant assortis. La version GTL supplantera rapidement la 4 TL.

En mai 1986, lors du remaniement de la gamme, la GTL devient « GTL Clan », (...)

En 1989, Renault revient à de plus banales jantes tôles, et équipe ce modèle du même « pack sécurité » que la version TL Savane.

Trop âgée pour pouvoir respecter les normes antipollution qui doivent arriver en 1993 (pot catalytique obligatoire), la production de Renault 4 est arrêtée fin 1992 avec une série « Bye-Bye » de R4 GTL Clan, des modèles numérotés de 1 à 1 000 devenus collectors."

 

- Séries spéciales

"Dès le début de la production, Renault propose des modèles à diffusion limitées, afin de relancer les ventes, ou encore rajeunir l'image de la voiture. Plusieurs séries spéciales sont ainsi créées : la « Safari » (1976), la « Jogging » (1981), la « Sixties » (1985) avec sa sellerie flashy et ses deux toits ouvrants, la « Carte jeune » (1991)...

Durant les années 1960, d'autres modèles nettement plus rares ont été produits, tels la « Plein air », la « Parisienne » ou encore des adaptations 4x4 produites par Sinpar."

(...)

 

Source: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

 

More info:

www.renaultclassiccarclub.com/ModelsRegister/r4_history.html

www.r4-4l.com/tous-les-modeles-de-4l/histoire-de-la-4l/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

50 aniversario del Renault 4L en España [1964-2014]

 

Emilio Salmoral

Periodista especializado en el mundo del motor. Colaborador en AUTO BILD

 

02/05/2014 - 10:35

 

"Aunque el Renault 4L llevaba fabricándose desde finales de 1963 (se hicieron 250 unidades), hasta el año siguiente no comenzaron las primeras entregas a los clientes.

Pero el Renault 4 no era un coche desconocido, ya que llevaba desde 1961 fabricándose en Francia.

Es posible que circularan algunas unidades construidas en el país vecino, pero tuvieron que pasar tres años para fabricar en España.

Por cierto, en Portugal también se construyó en la planta de Guarda y los aficionados sienten devoción por él.

 

Respecto a la versión francesa, el Renault 4L de FASA es diferente. Los parachoques son de un diseño distinto y tiene una especie de bigote en la placa de la matrícula posterior. Además, los coches españoles tampoco tienen los intermitentes laterales que sí tenían los franceses.

La historia nos ha demostrado que lo que buscaban los ingenieros españoles era, sobre todo, una mecánica con mayores capacidades. Por ello, nuestro 4L utilizó un motor de 845 centímetros cúbicos y 30 CV de potencia con los que podía ofrecer unas capacidades dinámicas superiores que los del 0,7 litros que también se vendía en Francia como versión de acceso.

Asimismo, todos los coches comercializados en España tienen un sistema eléctrico de 12 voltios que permite una mayor iluminación.

En 1965, Renault lanza al mercado la versión Super que ofrecía a su conductor unos asientos más lujosos y en 1967 empieza a utilizar los paragolpes del Renault 8."

(...)

 

"En 1968 se introduce al mercado el primer restyling del Renault 4. Las principales diferencias son una parrilla totalmente nueva que se hace evidente en todo el frontal del vehículo.

Pero los mayores cambios se encuentran en la mecánica: el R4 abandona el motor originario del 4/4 y estrena el tipo Sierra del Renault 8 que ofrecía una elevadísima fiabilidad. Con este bloque, la potencia se incrementó hasta los 35 CV. También era muy alabado por los conductores de su época el excelente sincronizado de su caja de cambios.

 

Así se mantuvo el Renault 4 hasta que en 1978 se sometió a su segunda puesta al día. La bonita parrilla de aluminio dejó paso a una de plástico; los intermitentes adoptaron el color naranja y ganaron en tamaño. Por cierto, volvió a cambiar de paragolpes. Como el Renault 8 ya no se fabricaba, recurrió a los que usaba el Renault 4 francés de 1968.

En 1982 se produjo un hecho histórico, ya que el 4L adoptó el motor de 1,1 litros con 40 CV. Este bloque es legendario para la marca francesa, ya que lo han usado coches como el 8 TS, Renault 5 o Twingo.

 

Pero el interior del Renault 4L seguía siendo el mismo y muchos conductores estaban cansados de ese salpicadero de tono beige que era demasiado simple.

En 1983 FASA decidió darle a su coche un aspecto visual más moderno y apostó el plástico negro, una renovada instrumentación y unos asientos más cómodos que llegaron a incluir hasta reposacabezas.

El último Renault 4 se fabricó en Valladolid en 1989.

Aunque el coche se comercializó hasta 1992, el que quería un 4L tenía que comprarse la versión Clan que estaba fabricada en Eslovenia y no tenía la calidad de construcción de nuestro paisano castellano."

(...)

 

Fuente: www.autobild.es/reportajes/50-aniversario-renault-4l-espa...

 

More info:

elautomovilenespana.blogspot.com.es/2010/06/renault-4-ii....

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

www.ocio.net/motor/historia-del-renault-4-un-automovil-un...

 

En fait tout le monde est à ces occupations et personne ne semble remarquer le/la photographe.

Plus naturel et instantané ne se fait pas, mais une vieille dame, elle a bien vu l'appareil photographique...

Qui possédant un appareil stéréo à cette époque peut être attendri par un enfant debout dès l'aube pour assurer la manutention sur le marché ?

En plein mois de septembre-octobre, vente de pommes que l'on va garder des mois à la cave juste en les retournant régulièrement ! Et cela marche, elles se conservent parfaitement!!

Le froid arrive, certains se couvrent, les arbres sont nus comme ici dans l'hémisphère nord... À un siècle prêt.

 

Estimation 1900/1910 vu les chapeaux, melon et robes de ces dames.

Lieu : Possibilité Melun en région parisienne.

 

In fact, everyone is busy with their own activities and no one seems to notice the photographer.

It couldn't be more natural and spontaneous, but an elderly lady did notice the camera...

Who, owning a stereo at that time, could be moved by a child standing up at dawn to help out at the market?

In the middle of September-October, apples are sold that will be stored for months in the cellar, just by turning them over regularly! And it works, they keep perfectly!

The cold is coming, some people are covering up, the trees are bare, as here in the northern hemisphere... Give or take a century.

 

Estimated 1900/1910 based on the ladies' hats, bowler hats, and dresses.

Location: Possibly Melun in the Paris region.

  

Item nº 53206.

Renault 4L "Guardia Civil" (España).

Escala 1/43.

Mondo S.p.A. (Italia).

Made in China.

Año 2014 (?)

 

More info about Mondo Motors 1:43 diecast collections:

www.mondomotors.org/products_category.cfm?id=827

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Renault 4

 

"La Renault 4 (couramment appelée 4L) est une petite voiture populaire de grande diffusion de conception simple et pratique. Ce fut aussi la première application de la traction sur une voiture automobile de tourisme de la marque Renault après que cette technique a été adoptée sur l'Estafette en 1958.

 

Elle est construite d'août 1961 à la fin 1992 dans 28 pays, initialement avec la Dauphine sur l'île Seguin à Boulogne-Billancourt ainsi qu'à l'usine Renault de Flins, en Espagne (par Fasa-Renault), en Argentine par IKA-Renault, en Italie par Alfa Romeo (sous licence), au Maroc, à Madagascar, en Afrique du Sud, puis en Slovénie pour les dernières années de sa production.

 

La Renault 4 connut un grand succès auprès des PME, des artisans, de la gendarmerie (c'était l'une des voitures françaises de l'époque qui permettait de conduire avec le képi sur la tête), mais également auprès des PTT, de France Télécom ou EdF dans sa version fourgonnette F4 ; ces contrats lui donnèrent une très grande visibilité.

 

En France, la Renault 4 fut en tête des ventes de 1962 à 1965 (succédant à la Renault Dauphine), puis de 1967 à 1968. Elle reste aujourd'hui [Quand ?] la deuxième voiture française la plus vendue avec 8 135 424 exemplaires derrière la Peugeot 206 et juste devant le duo Renault 9 et 11."

(...)

 

"Moteurs utilisés sur la Renault 4 au fil des années4 :

 

- 603 cm3 (49 x 80) : puissance 23 ch et couple de 4,3 mkg. Monté sur R3 (modèles 1962) ;

- 747 cm3 (54,5 x 80) : puissance 27,6 ch à 30 ch et couple de 5,1 à 5,6 mkg ;

- 782 cm3 (55 x 80) à partir des modèles 1972 : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,4 mkg ;

- 845 cm3 (58 x 80) avec option 5 CV : puissance 30 ch et couple de 5,9 mkg. Montée en série pour 1983 ;

- 956 cm3 (65 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 6,2 mkg. Monté sur les derniers modèles TL Savane à partir de mai 1986 ;

- 1 108 cm3 (70 x 72) : puissance 34 ch et couple de 7,5 mkg. Équipe en série la 4 GTL à partir du début 1978."

(...)

 

Versions

 

- La R3

"La R3 est une déclinaison économique avec le petit « moteur Billancourt » de 603 cm³ « sous-alésé » dérivé du moteur de la 4 CV. (...) Elle ne fut produite que de 1961 à 1962, le nombre total d'exemplaires construits varie selon les estimations entre 2 526 et 2 571, ce qui en fait un modèle extrêmement recherché par les collectionneurs aujourd'hui."

 

- La R4 L

"À côté de la R3 et de la R4 de base — sensiblement équivalente à la R3 dans sa présentation — il existait une déclinaison « Luxe » dite R4 L, elle se caractérisait par sa troisième vitre latérale et différents accessoires et baguettes inox, qui la rendait plus luxueuse.

Cette version, qui s'appela bientôt R4 L Export, fut la plus vendue. À tel point que l'appellation générique de la Renault 4 deviendra progressivement 4L. Par rapport à la version de base, qui possédait des sièges du type « strapontins suspendus » de même type que la 2 CV, la R4 L Export possédait des sièges plus élaborés et plus confortables (séparés à l'avant) et une banquette arrière rabattable."

 

- La Parisienne (1963)

 

- Les R4 Export, 4 TL et TL Savane

"Hormis le modèle de base, la Renault traverse la fin des années 1960 et les années 1970 sous la forme de la R4 « Export », qui devint la 4 TL pour 1976. (...)

En 1986, le modèle TL est rebaptisé « TL Savane » (...) En 1989, Renault équipe ce modèle du « pack sécurité » (...) "

 

- La 4 GTL

"Début 1978, la 4 GTL reprend la formule qui a fait le succès de la Renault 5 GTL : un gros « moteur Cléon-Fonte » de 1 108 cm3 retravaillé pour consommer moins (5,4 litres aux 100) et des bandes de protection latérales grises avec pare-chocs et crosses avant assortis. La version GTL supplantera rapidement la 4 TL.

En mai 1986, lors du remaniement de la gamme, la GTL devient « GTL Clan », (...)

En 1989, Renault revient à de plus banales jantes tôles, et équipe ce modèle du même « pack sécurité » que la version TL Savane.

Trop âgée pour pouvoir respecter les normes antipollution qui doivent arriver en 1993 (pot catalytique obligatoire), la production de Renault 4 est arrêtée fin 1992 avec une série « Bye-Bye » de R4 GTL Clan, des modèles numérotés de 1 à 1 000 devenus collectors."

 

- Séries spéciales

"Dès le début de la production, Renault propose des modèles à diffusion limitées, afin de relancer les ventes, ou encore rajeunir l'image de la voiture. Plusieurs séries spéciales sont ainsi créées : la « Safari » (1976), la « Jogging » (1981), la « Sixties » (1985) avec sa sellerie flashy et ses deux toits ouvrants, la « Carte jeune » (1991)...

Durant les années 1960, d'autres modèles nettement plus rares ont été produits, tels la « Plein air », la « Parisienne » ou encore des adaptations 4x4 produites par Sinpar."

(...)

 

Source: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

 

More info:

www.renaultclassiccarclub.com/ModelsRegister/r4_history.html

www.r4-4l.com/tous-les-modeles-de-4l/histoire-de-la-4l/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

50 aniversario del Renault 4L en España [1964-2014]

 

Emilio Salmoral

Periodista especializado en el mundo del motor. Colaborador en AUTO BILD

 

02/05/2014 - 10:35

 

"Aunque el Renault 4L llevaba fabricándose desde finales de 1963 (se hicieron 250 unidades), hasta el año siguiente no comenzaron las primeras entregas a los clientes.

Pero el Renault 4 no era un coche desconocido, ya que llevaba desde 1961 fabricándose en Francia.

Es posible que circularan algunas unidades construidas en el país vecino, pero tuvieron que pasar tres años para fabricar en España.

Por cierto, en Portugal también se construyó en la planta de Guarda y los aficionados sienten devoción por él.

 

Respecto a la versión francesa, el Renault 4L de FASA es diferente. Los parachoques son de un diseño distinto y tiene una especie de bigote en la placa de la matrícula posterior. Además, los coches españoles tampoco tienen los intermitentes laterales que sí tenían los franceses.

La historia nos ha demostrado que lo que buscaban los ingenieros españoles era, sobre todo, una mecánica con mayores capacidades. Por ello, nuestro 4L utilizó un motor de 845 centímetros cúbicos y 30 CV de potencia con los que podía ofrecer unas capacidades dinámicas superiores que los del 0,7 litros que también se vendía en Francia como versión de acceso.

Asimismo, todos los coches comercializados en España tienen un sistema eléctrico de 12 voltios que permite una mayor iluminación.

En 1965, Renault lanza al mercado la versión Super que ofrecía a su conductor unos asientos más lujosos y en 1967 empieza a utilizar los paragolpes del Renault 8."

(...)

 

"En 1968 se introduce al mercado el primer restyling del Renault 4. Las principales diferencias son una parrilla totalmente nueva que se hace evidente en todo el frontal del vehículo.

Pero los mayores cambios se encuentran en la mecánica: el R4 abandona el motor originario del 4/4 y estrena el tipo Sierra del Renault 8 que ofrecía una elevadísima fiabilidad. Con este bloque, la potencia se incrementó hasta los 35 CV. También era muy alabado por los conductores de su época el excelente sincronizado de su caja de cambios.

 

Así se mantuvo el Renault 4 hasta que en 1978 se sometió a su segunda puesta al día. La bonita parrilla de aluminio dejó paso a una de plástico; los intermitentes adoptaron el color naranja y ganaron en tamaño. Por cierto, volvió a cambiar de paragolpes. Como el Renault 8 ya no se fabricaba, recurrió a los que usaba el Renault 4 francés de 1968.

En 1982 se produjo un hecho histórico, ya que el 4L adoptó el motor de 1,1 litros con 40 CV. Este bloque es legendario para la marca francesa, ya que lo han usado coches como el 8 TS, Renault 5 o Twingo.

 

Pero el interior del Renault 4L seguía siendo el mismo y muchos conductores estaban cansados de ese salpicadero de tono beige que era demasiado simple.

En 1983 FASA decidió darle a su coche un aspecto visual más moderno y apostó el plástico negro, una renovada instrumentación y unos asientos más cómodos que llegaron a incluir hasta reposacabezas.

El último Renault 4 se fabricó en Valladolid en 1989.

Aunque el coche se comercializó hasta 1992, el que quería un 4L tenía que comprarse la versión Clan que estaba fabricada en Eslovenia y no tenía la calidad de construcción de nuestro paisano castellano."

(...)

 

Fuente: www.autobild.es/reportajes/50-aniversario-renault-4l-espa...

 

More info:

elautomovilenespana.blogspot.com.es/2010/06/renault-4-ii....

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4

www.ocio.net/motor/historia-del-renault-4-un-automovil-un...

 

This was the Ramey's home but I don't know if his wife or daughter was named Christine! This just the front entrance anyway. I am back back after some of the snow melted. I have always liked the ever-so-slight decoration on this home that turns it into the Gothic style. A frontier touch of class. I think the log sheds and the stone house were the first structures while this house must have waited for some time. I'd guess it was erected near the turn of the century; it was retrofitted when natural gas came along, after the house, it was piped in around the outside of the foundation. The house is loaded with silt settled from the flood and rat turds from when the flood chased critters around. The gothic trim over the two front windows and door is the only adornment in this plain structure. The front door has a porcelain knob but no lock i could see. It was locked from the inside. I figure that the house was from the early century but the log sheds were much older than that. The stone structure was probably older. I guess it had a long, if early, life. It may look interesting but you wouldn't want to live there. It is not even on the market. This was probably a fairly dirt poor farm in my estimation. Maybe a crop of marijuana would bring the place back to life? I don't know if I can find anything else of interest out there but more history would be welcome.

 

I was on my out west to make a new pass of Ramey because I wanted to ferret out shots I left without study. I always think, "There may be something I missed." Well, I had missed THIS out at Ramey! I love being able to make up stories about pictures; you probably call them lies, grin.

 

The Corps of Engineers cut the road near the bridge to relieve the pressure so the flood would not wreck the Hygiene Road.

 

I have a lot of snaps left in my temp directory because I get excited by certain of my other shots like this brand new one. I feel that we were entirely robbed of a decent fall by the floods and we didn't get a lot of autumn otherwise but the flood gave us a wealth of subjects near Longmont.

 

I hate the sky taday but I guess this will not matter on this shot. The skies have been a really mixed bag lately nearing the end of January. Since then, the hills got a bonus of snow and even more today if you want another chance at spring skiing in the Rockies. Ski Eldora, above Boulder, is not the best area but Nederland opened ClubNed, probably the only and the first grass smoking bar in America. Enjoy. Ahhh apres' ski!

  

No other country has a higher number of slaves per 1000 people than Mauritania today, and while the presence of French colonialists helped to limit the extent of slavery, it did not eliminate it completely, despite several legal attempts to abolish it. The slaves are exclusively black, and the masters are the lighter skinned Berbers or Berber-Arabs, who have always considered themselves to be the white race. [6, p. 71] According to some estimations, as many as 20% of people in Mauritania are slaves, despite an ongoing effort to eradicate it. [12]

Now that slavery is illegal, there are no slave markets as such. The black people in Mauritania, however, even when free, are said to face discrimination. [13] Only one person has been persecuted for owning slaves so far, and she was sentenced to six months in jail. [14] Just as religious law is difficult to impose in remote populations in the desert, it isn't easy to impose an anti-slavery ban.

(There is no reason to believe the boy in the photo is a slave.)

 

Full gallery: www.m1key.me/photography/mauritania_part_2/

a bench with a view

  

I commandeered a work party from the angling club yesterday to get this down to the river from the front of our house where it was delivered to (about 250 metres with a bit of a twist and turn and a narrow gate to go through). It was delivered in March but this year, with the wet weather, some of the ground between the house and the river has been very mushy.

 

It is 110 kg so really needed about 5 able bodied folk to safely get it to its destination. I had already thought through logistics, I just needed a team. When I saw how many anglers had turned up yesterday I realised my chance had come. I am grateful to them for helping.

 

The bench is from from Ecoplastics Annacloy. It is made from recycled plastic, specifically from plastic bottle tops that are sifted out of recycled household waste.

 

Sometime, I must do a calculated estimation of how many bottle tops are in this bench!

  

R.E.M. - Sitting Still

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sqpF-Si4o8

   

At 21:47 GMT, the equinox happened, and so from then on, light is destined to win over darkness. Which meant, of course, that the day before then was the shortest "day", or amount of daylight.

 

This is the end of the year, the build up and excitement before Christmas, and at the same time, looking back at the year, and what has happened in the previous 50 or so weeks. So, a time of mixed emotions, good and bad, happy and sad.

 

But I was on vacation, or not going to work.

 

I am not up to date, but I did all the tasks I was supposed to do, threw a few electronic grenades over the walls, and was now happy not to think of that shit for two whole weeks.

 

For Jools, however, there was half a day to do, and then her employers paid for all those employed at the factory to go to a fancy place in Folkestone for lunch, drinks at the bar and a bottle of wine between four folks.

 

It was, in short, a time for celebration. Something I realise has not happened in my job since I left operational quality, to be happy and give thanks to those we work with. And be recognised for the good job we do.

 

So, I was to take Jools to work, and have the car for the day.

 

Jools was conscious that my plan for the day involved driving to the far west of Kent, so realised I needed an early start, and not dropping her off in Hythe at seven.

 

We left after coffee just after six, driving through Dover and Folkestone on the main road and motorway before turning over the downs into Hythe. I dropped her off in the town, so she could get some walking in. She always didn't walk, as waves of showers swept over the town, and me as I drove back home for breakfast and do all the chores before leaving on a mini-churchcrawl.

 

So, back home for breakfast, more coffee, wash up, do the bird feeders and with postcodes, set out for points in the extreme west. Now, Kent is not a big county, not say, Texas big, but it takes some time to get to some parts of the west of the county. Main roads run mainly from London to the coast, so going cross-country or cross-county would take time.

 

At first it was as per normal up the A20 then onto the motorway to Ashford then to Maidstone until the junction before the M26 starts. One of the reasons for going later was to avoid rush hours in and around Maidstone, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

 

As it was, after turning down the A road, things were fine until I got to Mereworth, but from there the road began to twist and turn until it lead me into Tonbridge. Once upon a time, this was a sleepy village or small town. The the railways came and it became a major junction. The road to Penshurt took me though the one way system, then down the wide High Street, over the river Medway and up the hill the other side.

 

Two more turns took me to my target, through what were once called stockbroker mansions, then down a hill, with the village laid out before me just visible through the trees.

 

The village was built around the outskirts of Penshurst Place, home to the Sidney family since Tudor times. Just about everything is named the Leicester something, the village having its own Leicester Square, though with no cinemas, and all timber framed houses and painfully picturesque.

 

The church lays behind the houses, the tower in golden sandstone topped with four spirelets.

 

I parked the car, and armed with two cameras, several lenses and a photographer's eye, walked to the church.

 

The reason for coming was I can only remember a little about my previous visit, but the Leicester name thing triggered in my head the thought the memorials and tombs might be worth a revisit.

 

So there I was.

 

Gilbert Scott was very busy here, so there is little of anything prior to the 19th century, but the memorials are there. Including one which features the heads of the children of Robert Sidney (d1702) in a cloud. Including the eldest son who died, apparently, so young he wasn't named, and is recorded as being the first born.

 

This is in the Sidney Chapel where the great and good are buried and remembered, it has a colourful roof, or roof beams, and heraldic shields. It has a 15th century font, which, sadly, has been brightly painted so is gaudy in the extreme.

 

I go around getting my shots, leave a fiver for the church. Go back to the car and program Speldhurst into the sat nav.

 

Its just a ten minute drive, but there is no place to park anywhere near the church. I could see from my slow drive-by the porch doors closed, and I convinced myself they were locked and not worth checking out.

 

I went on to Groombridge, where there is a small chapel with fabulous glass. I had been here before too, but wanted to redo my shots.

 

It was by now pouring with rain, and as dark as twilight, I missed the church on first pass, went to the mini-roundabout only to discover that it and the other church in the village were in Sussex. I turned round, the church looked dark and was almost certainly locked. I told myself.

 

I didn't stop here either, so instead of going to the final village church, I went straigh to Tunbridge Wells where there was another church to revisit.

 

I drove into the town, over the man road and to the car park with no waiting in traffic, how odd, I thought.

 

It was hard to find a parking space, but high up in the parking house there were finally spaced. I parked near the stairs down, grabbed my cameras and went down.

 

I guess I could have parked nearer the church, but once done it would be easier to leave the town as the road back home went past the exit.

 

I ambled down the hill leading to the station, over the bridge and down the narrow streets, all lined with shops. I think its fair to say that it is a richer town than Dover because on one street there were three stores offering beposke designer kitchens.

 

The church is across the road from the Georgian square known at The Pantiles, but it was the church I was here to visit.

 

I go in, and there is a service underway. I decide to sit at the back and observe.

 

And pray.

 

I did not take communion, though. The only one there who didn't.

 

About eight elderly parishioners did, though.

 

I was here to photograph the ceiling, and then the other details I failed to record when we were last here over a decade ago.

 

I was quizzed strongly by a warden as to why I was doing this. I had no answer other than I enjoyed it, and for me that is enough.

 

After getting my shots, I leave and begin the slog back up to the car, but on the way keeping my promise to a young man selling the Big Issue that I would come back and buy a copy. I did better than that in that I gave him a fiver and didn't take a copy.

 

He nearly burst into tears. I said, there is kindness in the world, and some of us do keep our promises.

 

By the time I got to the car park, it was raining hard again. I had two and a half hours to get to Folkestone to pick up Jools after her meal.

 

Traffic into Tunbridge Wells from this was was crazy, miles and miles of queues, so I was more than happy going the other way.

 

I get back to the M20, cruise down to Ashford, stopping at Stop 24 services for a coffee and something to eat. I had 90 minutes to kill, so eat, drink and scroll Twitter as I had posted yet more stuff that morning. In other news: nothing changed, sadly.

 

At quarter past four I went to pick up Jools, stopping outside the restaurant. When she got in she declared she had been drinking piña coladas. Just two, but she was bubby and jabbering away all the way home.

 

With Jools having eaten out, and with snacks I had, no dinner was needed, so when suppertime came round, we dined on cheese and crackers, followed by a large slice of Christmas cake.

 

She was now done for Christmas too.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

The red brick church stands on a busy junction at the end of the Pantiles whose patrons it was built to serve in 1678. Within thirty years it had been extended on two occasions to more or less reach its present size. The ceiling bears the date 1678 and is rather domestic in character, based on deep circular domes with putti, palms and swags. The stained glass in the east window is based on a picture by Alex Ender and was designed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1901. There is an excellent window under the north gallery designed by Lawrence Lee in 1969. The church was sympathetically restored by Ewan Christian in 1882, when the shallow chancel was added. The woodwork it contains was brought from one of Wren's City of London churches. Outside the west wall of the church, set into the footpath, is a boundary marker to show the former parish boundaries of Tonbridge and Speldhurst.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Tunbridge+Wells+1

 

-------------------------------------------

  

The large and populous hamlet or village of TUNBRIDGE-WELLS is situated at the south-east boundary of this parish; part of it only is in Speldhurst, another part in the parish of Tunbridge, and the remainder in that of Fant, in the county of Suffex. It consists of four smaller districts, named from the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, and Mount Sion; the other is called The Wells, from their being within it, which altogether form a considerable town; but the last is the centre of business and pleasure, for there, besides the Wells themselves, are the market, public parades, assembly rooms, taverns, shops, &c. Near the Wells is the chapel, which stands remarkably in the three parishes above mentioned—the pulpit in Speldhurst, the altar in Tunbridge, and the vestry in Fant, and the stream, which parted the two counties of Kent and Suffex, formerly ran underneath it, but is now turned to a further distance from it. The right of patronage is claimed by the rector of Speldhurst, though he has never yet possessed the chapel or presented to it; the value of it is about two hundred pounds per annum, which sum is raised by voluntary subscription; divine service is performed in it every day in summer, and three times a week in winter. Adjoining to it is a charity school, for upwards of fifty poor boys and girls, which is supported by a contribution, collected at the chapel doors, two or three times a year.

 

The trade of Tunbridge-wells is similar to that of Spa, in Germany, and consists chiefly in a variety of toys, made of wood, commonly called Tunbridge ware, which employs a great number of hands. The wood principally used for this purpose is beech and sycamore, with yew and holly inlaid, and beautifully polished. To the market of this place is brought, in great plenty, from the South downs, in Sussex, the little bird, called the wheatear, which, from its delicacy, is usually called the English ortolan. It is not bigger in size than a lark; it is almost a lump of fat, and of a very delicious taste; it is in season only in the midst of summer, when the heat of the weather, and the fatness of it, prevents its being sent to London, which otherwise would, in all likelihood, monopolize every one of them. On the other or Suffex side of the Medway, above a mile from the Wells, are the rocks, which consist of a great number of rude eminences, adjoining to each other, several of which are seventy feet in height; in several places there are cliffs and chasms which lead quite through the midst of them, by narrow gloomy passages, which strike the beholder with astonishment.

 

THESE MEDICINAL WATERS, commonly called TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, lie so near to the county of Suffex that part of them are within it, for which reason they were for some time called Fant-wells, as being within that parish. (fn. 1) Their efficacy is reported to have been accidentally found out by Dudley lord North, in the beginning of the reign of king James I. Whilst he resided at Eridge-house for his health, lord Abergavenny's seat, in this neighbourhood, and that he was entirely cured of the lingering consumptive disorder he laboured under by the use of them.

 

The springs, which were then discovered, seem to have been seven in number, two of the principal of which were some time afterwards, by lord Abergavenny's care, inclosed, and were afterwards much resorted to by many of the middling and lower sort, whose ill health had real occasion for the use of them. In which state they continued till queen Henrietta Maria, wife of king Charles I. having been sent hither by her physicians, in the year 1630, for the reestablishment of her health, soon brought these waters into fashion, and occasioned a great resort to them from that time. In compliment to her doctor, Lewis Rowzee, in his treatise on them, calls these springs the Queen's-wells; but this name lasted but a small time, and they were soon afterwards universally known by that of Tunbridge-wells, which names they acquired from the company usually residing at Tunbridge town, when they came into these parts for the benefit of drinking the waters.

 

The town of Tunbridge being five miles distant from the wells, occasioned some few houses to be built in the hamlets of Southborough and Rusthall, for the accommodation of the company resorting hither, and this place now becoming fashionable, was visited by numbers for the sake of pleasure and dissipation, as well as for the cure of their infirmities; and soon after the Restoration every kind of building, for public amusements, was erected at the two hamlets above mentioned, lodgings and other buildings were built at and near the wells, the springs themselves were secured, and other conveniencies added to them. In 1664, the queen came here by the advice of her physicians, in hopes of reinstating her health, which was greatly impaired by a dangerous fever, and her success, in being perfectly cured by these waters, greatly raised the reputation of them, and the company increasing yearly, it induced the inhabitants to make every accommodation for them adjoining to the Wells, so that both Rusthall and Southborough became ruinous and deserted by all but their native inhabitants. The duke of York, with his duchess, and the two princesses their daughters, visited Tunbridge-wells in the year 1670, which brought much more company than usual to them, and raised their reputation still higher; and the annual increase continuing, it induced the lord of the manor to think of improving this humour of visiting the wells to his own profit as well as the better accommodation of the company. To effect which, he entered into an agreement with his tenants, and hired of them the herbage of the waste of the manor for the term of fifty years, at the yearly rent of ten shillings to each tenant, and then erected shops and houses on and near the walks and springs, in every convenient spot for that purpose; by which means Tunbridge wells became a populous and flourishing village, well inhabited, for whose convenience, and the company resorting thither, a chapel was likewise built, in 1684, by subscription, on some ground given by the lady viscountess Purbeck, which was, about twelve years afterwards, enlarged by an additional subscription, amounting together to near twenty-three hundred pounds.

 

About the year 1726, the building lease, which had been granted by the lord of the manor of Rusthall, in which this hamlet is situated, expiring, the tenants of the manor claimed a share in the buildings, as a compensation for the loss of the herbage, which was covered by his houses. This occasioned a long and very expensive law suit between them, which was at last determined in favour of the tenants, who were adjudged to have a right to a third part of the buildings then erected on the estate, in lieu of their right to the herbage; upon which all the shops and houses, which had been built on the manor waste, were divided into three lots, of which the tenants were to draw one, and the other two were to remain to the lord of the manor; the lot which the tenants drew was the middle one, which included the assembly room on the public walk, which has since turned out much the most advantageous of the three. After which long articles of agreement, in 1739, were entered into between Maurice Conyers, esq. then lord of the manor of Rusthall, and the above mentioned tenants of it, in which, among many other matters, he agreed to permit the public walks and wells, and divers other premises there, to be made use of for the public benefit of the nobility and gentry resorting thereto, and several regulations were made in them concerning the walks, wells, and wastes of the manor, and for the restraining buildings on the waste, between the lord and his tenants, according to a plan therein specified; all which were confirmed and established by an act of parliament, passed in 1740. Since which several of the royal family have honoured these wells with their presence, and numbers of the nobility and persons of rank and fashion yearly resortto them, so that this place is now in a most flourishing state, having great numbers of good houses built for lodgings, and every other necessary accommodation for the company. Its customs are settled; the employment of the dippers regulated; (fn. 2) its pleasures regulated; its markets well and plentifully supplied, at a reasonable rate, with sowl, fish, meat, every other kind of food, and every convenience added that can contribute to give health and pleasure.

 

¶The whole neighbourhood of Tunbridge-wells abounds with springs of mineral water, but as the properties of all are nearly the same, only those two, which at the first discovery of them were adjudged the best, are held in any particular estimation. These two wells are enclosed with a handsome triangular stone wall; over the springs are placed two convenient basons of Portland stone, with perforations at the bottom; one of them being given by queen Anne, and the other by the lord of the manor; through which they receive the water, which at the spring is extremely clear and bright. Its taste is steely, but not disagreeable; it has hardly any smell, though sometimes, in a dense air, its ferruginous exhalations are very distinguishable. In point of heat it is invariably temperate, the spring lying so deep in the earth, that neither the heat of summer, nor the cold of winter, affects it. When this water is first taken up in a large glass, its particles continue at rest till it is warmed to nearly the heat of the atmosphere, then a few airy globules begin to separate themselves, and adhere to the sides of the glass, and in a few hours a light copper coloured scum begins to float on the surface, after which an ochreous sediment settles at the bottom. Long continued rains sometimes give the water a milky appearance, but do not otherwise sensibly affect it. From the experiments of different physicians, it appears that the component parts of this water are, steely particles, marine salts, an oily matter, an ochreous substance, simple water, and a volatile vitriolic spirit, too subtile for any chemical analysis. In weight it is, in seven ounces and a quarter, four grains lighter than the German Spa (to which it is preferable on that account) and ten grains lighter than common water; with syrup of violets this water gives a deep green, as vitriols do. (fn. 3) It requires five drops of oleum sulphuris, or elixir of vitriol, to a quart of water, to preserve its virtues to a distance from the spring.

 

This water is said to be an impregnation of rain in some of the neighbouring eminences, which abound in iron mineral, where it is further enriched with the marine salts and all the valuable ingredients, which constitute it a light and pure chalybeate, which instantly searches the most remote recesses of the human frame, warms and invigorates the relaxed constitution, restores the weakened fibres to their due tone and elasticity, removes those obstructions to which the minuter vessels of the body are liable, and is consequently adapted to most cold chronical disorders, lowness of spirits, weak digestions, and nervous complaints. Dr. Lodowick Rowzee, of Ashford, in this county, wrote a Treatise of the Nature and Virtues of these Waters, printed in 12mo. 1671; and Dr. Patrick Madan wrote a Philosophical and Medical Essay on them, in 1687, in quarto.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp275-300

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam

 

The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is the world's largest embankment dam, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan Low Dam initially completed in 1902 downstream. Based on the success of the Low Dam, then at its maximum utilization, construction of the High Dam became a key objective of the government following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952; with its ability to better control flooding, provide increased water storage for irrigation and generate hydroelectricity, the dam was seen as pivotal to Egypt's planned industrialization. Like the earlier implementation, the High Dam has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt.

 

Before the High Dam was built, even with the old dam in place, the annual flooding of the Nile during late summer had continued to pass largely unimpeded down the valley from its East African drainage basin. These floods brought high water with natural nutrients and minerals that annually enriched the fertile soil along its floodplain and delta; this predictability had made the Nile valley ideal for farming since ancient times. However, this natural flooding varied, since high-water years could destroy the whole crop, while low-water years could create widespread drought and consequently famine. Both these events had continued to occur periodically. As Egypt's population grew and technology increased, both a desire and the ability developed to completely control the flooding, and thus both protect and support farmland and its economically important cotton crop. With the greatly increased reservoir storage provided by the High Aswan Dam, the floods could be controlled and the water could be stored for later release over multiple years.

 

The Aswan Dam was designed by the Moscow-based Hydroproject Institute.

 

The earliest recorded attempt to build a dam near Aswan was in the 11th century, when the Arab polymath and engineer Ibn al-Haytham (known as Alhazen in the West) was summoned to Egypt by the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to regulate the flooding of the Nile, a task requiring an early attempt at an Aswan Dam. His field work convinced him of the impracticality of this scheme.

 

The British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898. Construction lasted until 1902 and the dam was opened on 10 December 1902. The project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co., was the main contractor.

 

In 1952, the Greek-Egyptian engineer Adrian Daninos began to develop the plan of the new Aswan Dam. Although the Low Dam was almost overtopped in 1946, the government of King Farouk showed no interest in Daninos's plans. Instead the Nile Valley Plan by the British hydrologist Harold Edwin Hurst was favored, which proposed to store water in Sudan and Ethiopia, where evaporation is much lower. The Egyptian position changed completely after the overthrow of the monarchy, led by the Free Officers Movement including Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Free Officers were convinced that the Nile Waters had to be stored in Egypt for political reasons, and within two months, the plan of Daninos was accepted. Initially, both the United States and the USSR were interested in helping development of the dam. Complications ensued due to their rivalry during the Cold War, as well as growing intra-Arab tensions.

 

In 1955, Nasser was claiming to be the leader of Arab nationalism, in opposition to the traditional monarchies, especially the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq following its signing of the 1955 Baghdad Pact. At that time the U.S. feared that communism would spread to the Middle East, and it saw Nasser as a natural leader of an anticommunist procapitalist Arab League. America and the United Kingdom offered to help finance construction of the High Dam, with a loan of $270 million, in return for Nasser's leadership in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. While opposed to communism, capitalism, and imperialism, Nasser identified as a tactical neutralist, and sought to work with both the U.S. and the USSR for Egyptian and Arab benefit.[8] After the UN criticized a raid by Israel against Egyptian forces in Gaza in 1955, Nasser realized that he could not portray himself as the leader of pan-Arab nationalism if he could not defend his country militarily against Israel. In addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and he turned first to the U.S. for aid.

 

American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Dwight Eisenhower told Nasser that the U.S. would supply him with weapons only if they were used for defensive purposes and if he accepted American military personnel for supervision and training. Nasser did not accept these conditions, and consulted the USSR for support.

 

Although Dulles believed that Nasser was only bluffing and that the USSR would not aid Nasser, he was wrong: the USSR promised Nasser a quantity of arms in exchange for a deferred payment of Egyptian grain and cotton. On 27 September 1955, Nasser announced an arms deal, with Czechoslovakia acting as a middleman for the Soviet support. Instead of attacking Nasser for turning to the Soviets, Dulles sought to improve relations with him. In December 1955, the US and the UK pledged $56 and $14 million, respectively, toward construction of the High Aswan Dam.

 

Though the Czech arms deal created an incentive for the US to invest at Aswan, the UK cited the deal as a reason for repealing its promise of dam funds. Dulles was angered more by Nasser's diplomatic recognition of China, which was in direct conflict with Dulles's policy of containment of communism.

 

Several other factors contributed to the US deciding to withdraw its offer of funding for the dam. Dulles believed that the USSR would not fulfil its commitment of military aid. He was also irritated by Nasser's neutrality and attempts to play both sides of the Cold War. At the time, other Western allies in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iraq, were resentful that Egypt, a persistently neutral country, was being offered so much aid.

 

In June 1956, the Soviets offered Nasser $1.12 billion at 2% interest for the construction of the dam. On 19 July the U.S. State Department announced that American financial assistance for the High Dam was "not feasible in present circumstances."

 

On 26 July 1956, with wide Egyptian acclaim, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal that included fair compensation for the former owners. Nasser planned on the revenues generated by the canal to help fund construction of the High Dam. When the Suez War broke out, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel seized the canal and the Sinai. But pressure from the U.S. and the USSR at the United Nations and elsewhere forced them to withdraw.

 

In 1958, the USSR proceeded to provide support for the High Dam project.

 

In the 1950s, archaeologists began raising concerns that several major historical sites, including the famous temple of Abu Simbel were about to be submerged by waters collected behind the dam. A rescue operation began in 1960 under UNESCO

 

Despite its size, the Aswan project has not materially hurt the Egyptian balance of payments. The three Soviet credits covered virtually all of the project's foreign exchange requirements, including the cost of technical services, imported power generating and transmission equipment and some imported equipment for land reclamation. Egypt was not seriously burdened by payments on the credits, most of which were extended for 12 years with interest at the very low rate of 2-1/2%. Repayments to the USSR constituted only a small net drain during the first half of the 1960s, and increased export earnings derived from crops grown on newly reclaimed land have largely offset the modest debt service payments in recent years. During 1965–70, these export earnings amounted to an estimated $126 million, compared with debt service payments of $113 million.

 

A central pylon of the monument to Arab-Soviet Friendship. The memorial commemorates the completion of the Aswan High Dam. The coat of arms of the Soviet Union is on the left and the coat of arms of Egypt is on the right.

The Soviets also provided technicians and heavy machinery. The enormous rock and clay dam was designed by the Soviet Hydroproject Institute along with some Egyptian engineers. 25,000 Egyptian engineers and workers contributed to the construction of the dams.

 

Originally designed by West German and French engineers in the early 1950s and slated for financing with Western credits, the Aswan High Dam became the USSR's largest and most famous foreign aid project after the United States, the United Kingdom, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) withdrew their support in 1956. The first Soviet loan of $100 million to cover construction of coffer dams for diversion of the Nile was extended in 1958. An additional $225 million was extended in 1960 to complete the dam and construct power-generating facilities, and subsequently about $100 million was made available for land reclamation. These credits of some $425 million covered only the foreign exchange costs of the project, including salaries of Soviet engineers who supervised the project and were responsible for the installation and testing of Soviet equipment. Actual construction, which began in 1960, was done by Egyptian companies on contract to the High Dam Authority, and all domestic costs were borne by the Egyptians. Egyptian participation in the venture has raised the construction industry's capacity and reputation significantly.

 

On the Egyptian side, the project was led by Osman Ahmed Osman's Arab Contractors. The relatively young Osman underbid his only competitor by one-half.

 

1960: Start of construction on 9 January

1964: First dam construction stage completed, reservoir started filling

1970: The High Dam, as-Sad al-'Aali, completed on 21 July[18]

1976: Reservoir reached capacity.

 

Specifications

The Aswan High Dam is 3,830 metres (12,570 ft) long, 980 m (3,220 ft) wide at the base, 40 m (130 ft) wide at the crest and 111 m (364 ft)[ tall. It contains 43,000,000 cubic metres (56,000,000 cu yd) of material. At maximum, 11,000 cubic metres per second (390,000 cu ft/s) of water can pass through the dam. There are further emergency spillways for an extra 5,000 cubic metres per second (180,000 cu ft/s), and the Toshka Canal links the reservoir to the Toshka Depression. The reservoir, named Lake Nasser, is 500 km (310 mi) long[20] and 35 km (22 mi) at its widest, with a surface area of 5,250 square kilometres (2,030 sq mi). It holds 132 cubic kilometres (1.73×1011 cu yd) of water.

 

Due to the absence of appreciable rainfall, Egypt's agriculture depends entirely on irrigation. With irrigation, two crops per year can be produced, except for sugar cane which has a growing period of almost one year.

 

The high dam at Aswan releases, on average, 55 cubic kilometres (45,000,000 acre⋅ft) water per year, of which some 46 cubic kilometres (37,000,000 acre⋅ft) are diverted into the irrigation canals.

 

In the Nile valley and delta, almost 336,000 square kilometres (130,000 sq mi) benefit from these waters producing on average 1.8 crops per year. The annual crop consumptive use of water is about 38 cubic kilometres (31,000,000 acre⋅ft). Hence, the overall irrigation efficiency is 38/46 = 0.826 or 83%. This is a relatively high irrigation efficiency. The field irrigation efficiencies are much less, but the losses are reused downstream. This continuous reuse accounts for the high overall efficiency.

 

The following table shows the distribution of irrigation water over the branch canals taking off from the one main irrigation canal, the Mansuriya Canal near Giza.

 

Branch canalWater delivery in m3/feddan *

Kafret Nasser4,700

Beni Magdul3,500

El Mansuria3,300

El Hammami upstream2,800

El Hammami downstream1,800

El Shimi1,200

* Period 1 March to 31 July. 1 feddan is 0.42 ha or about 1 acre.

* Data from the Egyptian Water Use Management Project (EWUP)

The salt concentration of the water in the Aswan reservoir is about 0.25 kilograms per cubic metre (0.42 lb/cu yd), a very low salinity level. At an annual inflow of 55 cubic kilometres (45,000,000 acre⋅ft), the annual salt influx reaches 14 million tons. The average salt concentration of the drainage water evacuated into the sea and the coastal lakes is 2.7 kilograms per cubic metre (4.6 lb/cu yd). At an annual discharge of 10 cubic kilometres (2.4 cu mi) (not counting the 2 kilograms per cubic metre [3.4 lb/cu yd] of salt intrusion from the sea and the lakes, see figure "Water balances"), the annual salt export reaches 27 million ton. In 1995, the output of salt was higher than the influx, and Egypt's agricultural lands were desalinizing. Part of this could be due to the large number of subsurface drainage projects executed in the last decades to control the water table and soil salinity.

 

Drainage through subsurface drains and drainage channels is essential to prevent a deterioration of crop yields from waterlogging and soil salinization caused by irrigation. By 2003, more than 20,000 square kilometres (7,700 sq mi) have been equipped with a subsurface drainage system and approximately 7.2 square kilometres (2.8 sq mi) of water is drained annually from areas with these systems. The total investment cost in agricultural drainage over 27 years from 1973 to 2002 was about $3.1 billion covering the cost of design, construction, maintenance, research and training. During this period 11 large-scale projects were implemented with financial support from World Bank and other donors.

 

Effects

The High Dam has resulted in protection from floods and droughts, an increase in agricultural production and employment, electricity production, and improved navigation that also benefits tourism. Conversely, the dam flooded a large area, causing the relocation of over 100,000 people. Many archaeological sites were submerged while others were relocated. The dam is blamed for coastline erosion, soil salinity, and health problems.

 

The assessment of the costs and benefits of the dam remains controversial decades after its completion. According to one estimate, the annual economic benefit of the High Dam immediately after its completion was LE 255 million, $587 million using the exchange rate in 1970 of $2.30 per LE 1): LE 140 million from agricultural production, LE 100 million from hydroelectric generation, LE 10 million from flood protection, and LE 5 million from improved navigation. At the time of its construction, total cost, including unspecified "subsidiary projects" and the extension of electric power lines, amounted to LE 450 million. Not taking into account the negative environmental and social effects of the dam, its costs are thus estimated to have been recovered within only two years. One observer notes: "The impacts of the Aswan High Dam have been overwhelmingly positive. Although the Dam has contributed to some environmental problems, these have proved to be significantly less severe than was generally expected, or currently believed by many people." Another observer disagreed and he recommended that the dam should be torn down. Tearing it down would cost only a fraction of the funds required for "continually combating the dam's consequential damage" and 500,000 hectares (1,900 sq mi) of fertile land could be reclaimed from the layers of mud on the bed of the drained reservoir. Samuel C. Florman wrote about the dam: "As a structure it is a success. But in its effect on the ecology of the Nile Basin – most of which could have been predicted – it is a failure".

 

Periodic floods and droughts have affected Egypt since ancient times. The dam mitigated the effects of floods, such as those in 1964, 1973, and 1988. Navigation along the river has been improved, both upstream and downstream of the dam. Sailing along the Nile is a favorite tourism activity, which is mainly done during the winter when the natural flow of the Nile would have been too low to allow navigation of cruise ships.[clarification needed] A new fishing industry has been created around Lake Nasser, though it is struggling due to its distance from any significant markets. The annual production was about 35 000 tons in the mid-1990s. Factories for the fishing industry and packaging have been set up near the Lake.

 

According to a 1971 CIA declassified report, Although the High Dam has not created ecological problems as serious as some observers have charged, its construction has brought economic losses as well as gains. These losses derive largely from the settling in dam's lake of the rich silt traditionally borne by the Nile. To date (1971), the main impact has been on the fishing industry. Egypt's Mediterranean catch, which once averaged 35,000-40,000 tons annually, has shrunk to 20,000 tons or less, largely because the loss of plankton nourished by the silt has eliminated the sardine population in Egyptian waters. Fishing in high dam's lake may in time at least partly offset the loss of saltwater fish, but only the most optimistic estimates place the eventual catch as high as 15,000-20,000 tons. Lack of continuing silt deposits at the mouth of the river also has contributed to a serious erosion problem. Commercial fertilizer requirements and salination and drainage difficulties, already large in perennially irrigated areas of Lower and Middle Egypt, will be somewhat increased in Upper Egypt by the change to perennial irrigation.

 

The dams also protected Egypt from the droughts in 1972–73 and 1983–87 that devastated East and West Africa. The High Dam allowed Egypt to reclaim about 2.0 million feddan (840,000 hectares) in the Nile Delta and along the Nile Valley, increasing the country's irrigated area by a third. The increase was brought about both by irrigating what used to be desert and by bringing under cultivation of 385,000 hectares (950,000 acres) that were previously used as flood retention basins. About half a million families were settled on these new lands. In particular the area under rice and sugar cane cultivation increased. In addition, about 1 million feddan (420,000 hectares), mostly in Upper Egypt, were converted from flood irrigation with only one crop per year to perennial irrigation allowing two or more crops per year. On other previously irrigated land, yields increased because water could be made available at critical low-flow periods. For example, wheat yields in Egypt tripled between 1952 and 1991 and better availability of water contributed to this increase. Most of the 32 km3 of freshwater, or almost 40 percent of the average flow of the Nile that were previously lost to the sea every year could be put to beneficial use. While about 10 km3 of the water saved is lost due to evaporation in Lake Nasser, the amount of water available for irrigation still increased by 22 km3. Other estimates put evaporation from Lake Nasser at between 10 and 16 cubic km per year.

 

Electricity production

The dam powers twelve generators each rated at 175 megawatts (235,000 hp), with a total of 2.1 gigawatts (2,800,000 hp). Power generation began in 1967. When the High Dam first reached peak output it produced around half of Egypt's production of electric power (about 15 percent by 1998), and it gave most Egyptian villages the use of electricity for the first time. The High Dam has also improved the efficiency and the extension of the Old Aswan Hydropower stations by regulating upstream flows.

 

All High Dam power facilities were completed ahead of schedule. 12 turbines were installed and tested, giving the plant an installed capacity of 2,100 megawatts (MW), or more than twice the national total in 1960. With this capacity, the Aswan plant can produce 10 billion kWh of energy yearly. Two 500-kilovolt trunk lines to Cairo have been completed, and initial transmission problems, stemming mainly from poor insulators, were solved. Also, the damage inflicted on a main transformer station in 1968 by Israeli commandos has been repaired, and the Aswan plant is fully integrated with the power network in Lower Egypt. By 1971 estimation, Power output at Aswan, won't reach much more than half of the plant's theoretical capacity, because of limited water supplies and the differing seasonal water-use patterns for irrigation and power production. Agricultural demand for water in the summer far exceeds the amount needed to meet the comparatively low summer demand for electric power. Heavy summer irrigation use, however, will leave insufficient water under Egyptian control to permit hydroelectric power production at full capacity in the winter. Technical studies indicate that a maximum annual output of 5 billion kWh appears to be all that can be sustained due to fluctuations in Nile flows.

 

Resettlement and compensations

In Sudan, 50,000 to 70,000 Sudanese Nubians were moved from the old town of Wadi Halfa and its surrounding villages. Some were moved to a newly created settlement on the shore of Lake Nasser called New Wadi Halfa, and some were resettled approximately 700 kilometres (430 mi) south to the semi-arid Butana plain near the town of Khashm el-Girba up the Atbara River. The climate there had a regular rainy season as opposed to their previous desert habitat in which virtually no rain fell. The government developed an irrigation project, called the New Halfa Agricultural Development Scheme to grow cotton, grains, sugar cane and other crops. The Nubians were resettled in twenty five planned villages that included schools, medical facilities, and other services, including piped water and some electrification.

 

In Egypt, the majority of the 50,000 Nubians were moved three to ten kilometers from the Nile near Edna and Kom Ombo, 45 kilometers (28 mi) downstream from Aswan in what was called "New Nubia". Housing and facilities were built for 47 village units whose relationship to each other approximated that in Old Nubia. Irrigated land was provided to grow mainly sugar cane.

 

In 2019–20, Egypt started to compensate the Nubians who lost their homes following the dam impoundment.

 

Archaeological sites

Twenty-two monuments and architectural complexes that were threatened by flooding from Lake Nasser, including the Abu Simbel temples, were preserved by moving them to the shores of the lake under the UNESCO Nubia Campaign. Also moved were Philae, Kalabsha and Amada.

 

These monuments were granted to countries that helped with the works:

 

The Debod temple to Madrid

The Temple of Dendur to the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York

The Temple of Taffeh to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden of Leiden

The Temple of Ellesyia to the Museo Egizio of Turin

These items were removed to the garden area of the Sudan National Museum of Khartoum:

 

The temple of Ramses II at Aksha

The temple of Hatshepsut at Buhen

The temple of Khnum at Kumma

The tomb of the Nubian prince Djehuti-hotep at Debeira

The temples of Dedwen and Sesostris III at Semna

The granite columns from the Faras Cathedral

A part of the paintings of the Faras Cathedral; the other part is in the National Museum of Warsaw.

The Temple of Ptah at Gerf Hussein had its free-standing section reconstructed at New Kalabsha, alongside the Temple of Kalabsha, Beit el-Wali, and the Kiosk of Qertassi.

 

The remaining archaeological sites, including the Buhen fort and the cemetery of Fadrus have been flooded by Lake Nasser.

 

Loss of sediments

Before the construction of the High Dam, the Nile deposited sediments of various particle size – consisting of fine sand, silt and clay – on fields in Upper Egypt through its annual flood, contributing to soil fertility. However, the nutrient value of the sediment has often been overestimated. 88 percent of the sediment was carried to the sea before the construction of the High Dam. The nutrient value added to the land by the sediment was only 6,000 tons of potash, 7,000 tons of phosphorus pentoxide and 17,000 tons of nitrogen. These amounts are insignificant compared to what is needed to reach the yields achieved today in Egypt's irrigation. Also, the annual spread of sediment due to the Nile floods occurred along the banks of the Nile. Areas far from the river which never received the Nile floods before are now being irrigated.

 

A more serious issue of trapping of sediment by the dam is that it has increased coastline erosion surrounding the Nile Delta. The coastline erodes an estimated 125–175 m (410–574 ft) per year.

 

Waterlogging and increase in soil salinity

Before the construction of the High Dam, groundwater levels in the Nile Valley fluctuated 8–9 m (26–30 ft) per year with the water level of the Nile. During summer when evaporation was highest, the groundwater level was too deep to allow salts dissolved in the water to be pulled to the surface through capillary action. With the disappearance of the annual flood and heavy year-round irrigation, groundwater levels remained high with little fluctuation leading to waterlogging. Soil salinity also increased because the distance between the surface and the groundwater table was small enough (1–2 m depending on soil conditions and temperature) to allow water to be pulled up by evaporation so that the relatively small concentrations of salt in the groundwater accumulated on the soil surface over the years. Since most of the farmland did not have proper subsurface drainage to lower the groundwater table, salinization gradually affected crop yields.[31] Drainage through sub-surface drains and drainage channels is essential to prevent a deterioration of crop yields from soil salinization and waterlogging. By 2003, more than 2 million hectares have been equipped with a subsurface drainage system at a cost from 1973 to 2002 of about $3.1 billion.

 

Health

Contrary to many predictions made prior to the Aswan High Dam construction and publications that followed, that the prevalence of schistosomiasis (bilharzia) would increase, it did not. This assumption did not take into account the extent of perennial irrigation that was already present throughout Egypt decades before the high dam closure. By the 1950s only a small proportion of Upper Egypt had not been converted from basin (low transmission) to perennial (high transmission) irrigation. Expansion of perennial irrigation systems in Egypt did not depend on the high dam. In fact, within 15 years of the high dam closure there was solid evidence that bilharzia was declining in Upper Egypt. S. haematobium has since disappeared altogether. Suggested reasons for this include improvements in irrigation practice. In the Nile Delta, schistosomiasis had been highly endemic, with prevalence in the villages 50% or higher for almost a century before. This was a consequence of the conversion of the Delta to perennial irrigation to grow long staple cotton by the British. This has changed. Large-scale treatment programmes in the 1990s using single-dose oral medication contributed greatly to reducing the prevalence and severity of S. mansoni in the Delta.

 

Other effects

Sediment deposited in the reservoir is lowering the water storage capacity of Lake Nasser. The reservoir storage capacity is 162 km3, including 31 km3 dead storage at the bottom of the lake below 147 m (482 ft) above sea level, 90 km3 live storage, and 41 km3 of storage for high flood waters above 175 m (574 ft) above sea level. The annual sediment load of the Nile is about 134 million tons. This means that the dead storage volume would be filled up after 300–500 years if the sediment accumulated at the same rate throughout the area of the lake. Obviously sediment accumulates much faster at the upper reaches of the lake, where sedimentation has already affected the live storage zone.

 

Before the construction of the High Dam, the 50,000 km (31,000 mi) of irrigation and drainage canals in Egypt had to be dredged regularly to remove sediments. After construction of the dam, aquatic weeds grew much faster in the clearer water, helped by fertilizer residues. The total length of the infested waterways was about 27,000 km (17,000 mi) in the mid-1990s. Weeds have been gradually brought under control by manual, mechanical and biological methods.

 

Mediterranean fishing and brackish water lake fishery declined after the dam was finished because nutrients that flowed down the Nile to the Mediterranean were trapped behind the dam. For example, the sardine catch off the Egyptian coast declined from 18,000 tons in 1962 to a mere 460 tons in 1968, but then gradually recovered to 8,590 tons in 1992. A scientific article in the mid-1990s noted that "the mismatch between low primary productivity and relatively high levels of fish production in the region still presents a puzzle to scientists."

 

A concern before the construction of the High Dam had been the potential drop in river-bed level downstream of the Dam as the result of erosion caused by the flow of sediment-free water. Estimates by various national and international experts put this drop at between and 2 and 10 meters (6.6 and 32.8 ft). However, the actual drop has been measured at 0.3–0.7 meters (0.98–2.30 ft), much less than expected.[30]

 

The red-brick construction industry, which consisted of hundreds of factories that used Nile sediment deposits along the river, has also been negatively affected. Deprived of sediment, they started using the older alluvium of otherwise arable land taking out of production up to 120 square kilometers (46 sq mi) annually, with an estimated 1,000 square kilometers (390 sq mi) destroyed by 1984 when the government prohibited, "with only modest success," further excavation. According to one source, bricks are now being made from new techniques which use a sand-clay mixture and it has been argued that the mud-based brick industry would have suffered even if the dam had not been built.

 

Because of the lower turbidity of the water sunlight penetrates deeper in the Nile water. Because of this and the increased presence of nutrients from fertilizers in the water, more algae grow in the Nile. This in turn increases the costs of drinking water treatment. Apparently few experts had expected that water quality in the Nile would actually decrease because of the High Dam.

 

Appraisal of the Project

Although it is moot whether the project constitutes the best use of the funds spent, the Aswan Dam project unquestionably is and will continue to be economically beneficial to Egypt. The project has been expensive and it took considerable time to complete, as is usually the case with large hydroelectric developments, But Egypt now has a valuable asset with a long life and low operating costs. Even so, the wisdom of concentrating one-third of domestic saving and most of available foreign aid on a slow growth project is questionable. Since 1960, GNP has grown 50%, but mainly as a result of other investment.

 

Egyptian authorities were well aware that equivalent gains in output could have been achieved more quickly and more cheaply by other means. A series of low dams, similar to the barrages now contemplated, was suggested by Egyptian engineers as a more economical means of achieving up to 2,000 mW of additional generating capacity, US and WorldBank agricultural experts had long recommended improved drainage, introduction of hybrid seeds, and other such low-cost alternatives to land reclamation as a means of increasing agricultural output, In other areas, most notably the once efficient cotton textile industry, investment was needed to forestall an output decline, Implementation of these and other alternatives has been postponed rather than precluded by the High Dam project.

 

However, the decision to concentrate Egyptian savings and energies on the Aswan project for a decade was heavily based on non-economic factors. Nasser undoubtedly believed that a project of considerable symbolic appeal was needed to mobilize the population behind the government's economic goals, He also apparently felt that the East and West would be more easily persuaded to bid against each other for a project of this scope.

 

The Aswan High Dam made an appreciable contribution to Egyptian GNP, however the returns were well below what the planners had anticipated. The principal limiting factors on the High Dam's contribution to Egyptian output are a shortage of land suitable for reclamation, the high cost and long time required to bring reclaimed land to full productivity, and an inadequate water supply to meet power and irrigation goals simultaneously. The last limitation arises in part from the allocation in a 1959 agreement of more water to Sudan than was originally foreseen and in part from differences in the seasonal demand pattern of agriculture and the hydroelectric plant for the water. Irrigation requires very heavy use of water during summer months, while power generation needs peak during the winter. Ecological problems created by the dam, most of which were anticipated, have not seriously harmed the economy, although a few minor industries have been damaged.

 

The dam is, nonetheless, a viable project. Eventually the contribution to GNP equals as much as 20% of total investment. Moreover, the dam and associated projects provided returns that at least offset the cost of operation, repayment of foreign loans and amortisation of domestic loans.

At 21:47 GMT, the equinox happened, and so from then on, light is destined to win over darkness. Which meant, of course, that the day before then was the shortest "day", or amount of daylight.

 

This is the end of the year, the build up and excitement before Christmas, and at the same time, looking back at the year, and what has happened in the previous 50 or so weeks. So, a time of mixed emotions, good and bad, happy and sad.

 

But I was on vacation, or not going to work.

 

I am not up to date, but I did all the tasks I was supposed to do, threw a few electronic grenades over the walls, and was now happy not to think of that shit for two whole weeks.

 

For Jools, however, there was half a day to do, and then her employers paid for all those employed at the factory to go to a fancy place in Folkestone for lunch, drinks at the bar and a bottle of wine between four folks.

 

It was, in short, a time for celebration. Something I realise has not happened in my job since I left operational quality, to be happy and give thanks to those we work with. And be recognised for the good job we do.

 

So, I was to take Jools to work, and have the car for the day.

 

Jools was conscious that my plan for the day involved driving to the far west of Kent, so realised I needed an early start, and not dropping her off in Hythe at seven.

 

We left after coffee just after six, driving through Dover and Folkestone on the main road and motorway before turning over the downs into Hythe. I dropped her off in the town, so she could get some walking in. She always didn't walk, as waves of showers swept over the town, and me as I drove back home for breakfast and do all the chores before leaving on a mini-churchcrawl.

 

So, back home for breakfast, more coffee, wash up, do the bird feeders and with postcodes, set out for points in the extreme west. Now, Kent is not a big county, not say, Texas big, but it takes some time to get to some parts of the west of the county. Main roads run mainly from London to the coast, so going cross-country or cross-county would take time.

 

At first it was as per normal up the A20 then onto the motorway to Ashford then to Maidstone until the junction before the M26 starts. One of the reasons for going later was to avoid rush hours in and around Maidstone, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

 

As it was, after turning down the A road, things were fine until I got to Mereworth, but from there the road began to twist and turn until it lead me into Tonbridge. Once upon a time, this was a sleepy village or small town. The the railways came and it became a major junction. The road to Penshurt took me though the one way system, then down the wide High Street, over the river Medway and up the hill the other side.

 

Two more turns took me to my target, through what were once called stockbroker mansions, then down a hill, with the village laid out before me just visible through the trees.

 

The village was built around the outskirts of Penshurst Place, home to the Sidney family since Tudor times. Just about everything is named the Leicester something, the village having its own Leicester Square, though with no cinemas, and all timber framed houses and painfully picturesque.

 

The church lays behind the houses, the tower in golden sandstone topped with four spirelets.

 

I parked the car, and armed with two cameras, several lenses and a photographer's eye, walked to the church.

 

The reason for coming was I can only remember a little about my previous visit, but the Leicester name thing triggered in my head the thought the memorials and tombs might be worth a revisit.

 

So there I was.

 

Gilbert Scott was very busy here, so there is little of anything prior to the 19th century, but the memorials are there. Including one which features the heads of the children of Robert Sidney (d1702) in a cloud. Including the eldest son who died, apparently, so young he wasn't named, and is recorded as being the first born.

 

This is in the Sidney Chapel where the great and good are buried and remembered, it has a colourful roof, or roof beams, and heraldic shields. It has a 15th century font, which, sadly, has been brightly painted so is gaudy in the extreme.

 

I go around getting my shots, leave a fiver for the church. Go back to the car and program Speldhurst into the sat nav.

 

Its just a ten minute drive, but there is no place to park anywhere near the church. I could see from my slow drive-by the porch doors closed, and I convinced myself they were locked and not worth checking out.

 

I went on to Groombridge, where there is a small chapel with fabulous glass. I had been here before too, but wanted to redo my shots.

 

It was by now pouring with rain, and as dark as twilight, I missed the church on first pass, went to the mini-roundabout only to discover that it and the other church in the village were in Sussex. I turned round, the church looked dark and was almost certainly locked. I told myself.

 

I didn't stop here either, so instead of going to the final village church, I went straigh to Tunbridge Wells where there was another church to revisit.

 

I drove into the town, over the man road and to the car park with no waiting in traffic, how odd, I thought.

 

It was hard to find a parking space, but high up in the parking house there were finally spaced. I parked near the stairs down, grabbed my cameras and went down.

 

I guess I could have parked nearer the church, but once done it would be easier to leave the town as the road back home went past the exit.

 

I ambled down the hill leading to the station, over the bridge and down the narrow streets, all lined with shops. I think its fair to say that it is a richer town than Dover because on one street there were three stores offering beposke designer kitchens.

 

The church is across the road from the Georgian square known at The Pantiles, but it was the church I was here to visit.

 

I go in, and there is a service underway. I decide to sit at the back and observe.

 

And pray.

 

I did not take communion, though. The only one there who didn't.

 

About eight elderly parishioners did, though.

 

I was here to photograph the ceiling, and then the other details I failed to record when we were last here over a decade ago.

 

I was quizzed strongly by a warden as to why I was doing this. I had no answer other than I enjoyed it, and for me that is enough.

 

After getting my shots, I leave and begin the slog back up to the car, but on the way keeping my promise to a young man selling the Big Issue that I would come back and buy a copy. I did better than that in that I gave him a fiver and didn't take a copy.

 

He nearly burst into tears. I said, there is kindness in the world, and some of us do keep our promises.

 

By the time I got to the car park, it was raining hard again. I had two and a half hours to get to Folkestone to pick up Jools after her meal.

 

Traffic into Tunbridge Wells from this was was crazy, miles and miles of queues, so I was more than happy going the other way.

 

I get back to the M20, cruise down to Ashford, stopping at Stop 24 services for a coffee and something to eat. I had 90 minutes to kill, so eat, drink and scroll Twitter as I had posted yet more stuff that morning. In other news: nothing changed, sadly.

 

At quarter past four I went to pick up Jools, stopping outside the restaurant. When she got in she declared she had been drinking piña coladas. Just two, but she was bubby and jabbering away all the way home.

 

With Jools having eaten out, and with snacks I had, no dinner was needed, so when suppertime came round, we dined on cheese and crackers, followed by a large slice of Christmas cake.

 

She was now done for Christmas too.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

The red brick church stands on a busy junction at the end of the Pantiles whose patrons it was built to serve in 1678. Within thirty years it had been extended on two occasions to more or less reach its present size. The ceiling bears the date 1678 and is rather domestic in character, based on deep circular domes with putti, palms and swags. The stained glass in the east window is based on a picture by Alex Ender and was designed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1901. There is an excellent window under the north gallery designed by Lawrence Lee in 1969. The church was sympathetically restored by Ewan Christian in 1882, when the shallow chancel was added. The woodwork it contains was brought from one of Wren's City of London churches. Outside the west wall of the church, set into the footpath, is a boundary marker to show the former parish boundaries of Tonbridge and Speldhurst.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Tunbridge+Wells+1

 

-------------------------------------------

  

The large and populous hamlet or village of TUNBRIDGE-WELLS is situated at the south-east boundary of this parish; part of it only is in Speldhurst, another part in the parish of Tunbridge, and the remainder in that of Fant, in the county of Suffex. It consists of four smaller districts, named from the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, and Mount Sion; the other is called The Wells, from their being within it, which altogether form a considerable town; but the last is the centre of business and pleasure, for there, besides the Wells themselves, are the market, public parades, assembly rooms, taverns, shops, &c. Near the Wells is the chapel, which stands remarkably in the three parishes above mentioned—the pulpit in Speldhurst, the altar in Tunbridge, and the vestry in Fant, and the stream, which parted the two counties of Kent and Suffex, formerly ran underneath it, but is now turned to a further distance from it. The right of patronage is claimed by the rector of Speldhurst, though he has never yet possessed the chapel or presented to it; the value of it is about two hundred pounds per annum, which sum is raised by voluntary subscription; divine service is performed in it every day in summer, and three times a week in winter. Adjoining to it is a charity school, for upwards of fifty poor boys and girls, which is supported by a contribution, collected at the chapel doors, two or three times a year.

 

The trade of Tunbridge-wells is similar to that of Spa, in Germany, and consists chiefly in a variety of toys, made of wood, commonly called Tunbridge ware, which employs a great number of hands. The wood principally used for this purpose is beech and sycamore, with yew and holly inlaid, and beautifully polished. To the market of this place is brought, in great plenty, from the South downs, in Sussex, the little bird, called the wheatear, which, from its delicacy, is usually called the English ortolan. It is not bigger in size than a lark; it is almost a lump of fat, and of a very delicious taste; it is in season only in the midst of summer, when the heat of the weather, and the fatness of it, prevents its being sent to London, which otherwise would, in all likelihood, monopolize every one of them. On the other or Suffex side of the Medway, above a mile from the Wells, are the rocks, which consist of a great number of rude eminences, adjoining to each other, several of which are seventy feet in height; in several places there are cliffs and chasms which lead quite through the midst of them, by narrow gloomy passages, which strike the beholder with astonishment.

 

THESE MEDICINAL WATERS, commonly called TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, lie so near to the county of Suffex that part of them are within it, for which reason they were for some time called Fant-wells, as being within that parish. (fn. 1) Their efficacy is reported to have been accidentally found out by Dudley lord North, in the beginning of the reign of king James I. Whilst he resided at Eridge-house for his health, lord Abergavenny's seat, in this neighbourhood, and that he was entirely cured of the lingering consumptive disorder he laboured under by the use of them.

 

The springs, which were then discovered, seem to have been seven in number, two of the principal of which were some time afterwards, by lord Abergavenny's care, inclosed, and were afterwards much resorted to by many of the middling and lower sort, whose ill health had real occasion for the use of them. In which state they continued till queen Henrietta Maria, wife of king Charles I. having been sent hither by her physicians, in the year 1630, for the reestablishment of her health, soon brought these waters into fashion, and occasioned a great resort to them from that time. In compliment to her doctor, Lewis Rowzee, in his treatise on them, calls these springs the Queen's-wells; but this name lasted but a small time, and they were soon afterwards universally known by that of Tunbridge-wells, which names they acquired from the company usually residing at Tunbridge town, when they came into these parts for the benefit of drinking the waters.

 

The town of Tunbridge being five miles distant from the wells, occasioned some few houses to be built in the hamlets of Southborough and Rusthall, for the accommodation of the company resorting hither, and this place now becoming fashionable, was visited by numbers for the sake of pleasure and dissipation, as well as for the cure of their infirmities; and soon after the Restoration every kind of building, for public amusements, was erected at the two hamlets above mentioned, lodgings and other buildings were built at and near the wells, the springs themselves were secured, and other conveniencies added to them. In 1664, the queen came here by the advice of her physicians, in hopes of reinstating her health, which was greatly impaired by a dangerous fever, and her success, in being perfectly cured by these waters, greatly raised the reputation of them, and the company increasing yearly, it induced the inhabitants to make every accommodation for them adjoining to the Wells, so that both Rusthall and Southborough became ruinous and deserted by all but their native inhabitants. The duke of York, with his duchess, and the two princesses their daughters, visited Tunbridge-wells in the year 1670, which brought much more company than usual to them, and raised their reputation still higher; and the annual increase continuing, it induced the lord of the manor to think of improving this humour of visiting the wells to his own profit as well as the better accommodation of the company. To effect which, he entered into an agreement with his tenants, and hired of them the herbage of the waste of the manor for the term of fifty years, at the yearly rent of ten shillings to each tenant, and then erected shops and houses on and near the walks and springs, in every convenient spot for that purpose; by which means Tunbridge wells became a populous and flourishing village, well inhabited, for whose convenience, and the company resorting thither, a chapel was likewise built, in 1684, by subscription, on some ground given by the lady viscountess Purbeck, which was, about twelve years afterwards, enlarged by an additional subscription, amounting together to near twenty-three hundred pounds.

 

About the year 1726, the building lease, which had been granted by the lord of the manor of Rusthall, in which this hamlet is situated, expiring, the tenants of the manor claimed a share in the buildings, as a compensation for the loss of the herbage, which was covered by his houses. This occasioned a long and very expensive law suit between them, which was at last determined in favour of the tenants, who were adjudged to have a right to a third part of the buildings then erected on the estate, in lieu of their right to the herbage; upon which all the shops and houses, which had been built on the manor waste, were divided into three lots, of which the tenants were to draw one, and the other two were to remain to the lord of the manor; the lot which the tenants drew was the middle one, which included the assembly room on the public walk, which has since turned out much the most advantageous of the three. After which long articles of agreement, in 1739, were entered into between Maurice Conyers, esq. then lord of the manor of Rusthall, and the above mentioned tenants of it, in which, among many other matters, he agreed to permit the public walks and wells, and divers other premises there, to be made use of for the public benefit of the nobility and gentry resorting thereto, and several regulations were made in them concerning the walks, wells, and wastes of the manor, and for the restraining buildings on the waste, between the lord and his tenants, according to a plan therein specified; all which were confirmed and established by an act of parliament, passed in 1740. Since which several of the royal family have honoured these wells with their presence, and numbers of the nobility and persons of rank and fashion yearly resortto them, so that this place is now in a most flourishing state, having great numbers of good houses built for lodgings, and every other necessary accommodation for the company. Its customs are settled; the employment of the dippers regulated; (fn. 2) its pleasures regulated; its markets well and plentifully supplied, at a reasonable rate, with sowl, fish, meat, every other kind of food, and every convenience added that can contribute to give health and pleasure.

 

¶The whole neighbourhood of Tunbridge-wells abounds with springs of mineral water, but as the properties of all are nearly the same, only those two, which at the first discovery of them were adjudged the best, are held in any particular estimation. These two wells are enclosed with a handsome triangular stone wall; over the springs are placed two convenient basons of Portland stone, with perforations at the bottom; one of them being given by queen Anne, and the other by the lord of the manor; through which they receive the water, which at the spring is extremely clear and bright. Its taste is steely, but not disagreeable; it has hardly any smell, though sometimes, in a dense air, its ferruginous exhalations are very distinguishable. In point of heat it is invariably temperate, the spring lying so deep in the earth, that neither the heat of summer, nor the cold of winter, affects it. When this water is first taken up in a large glass, its particles continue at rest till it is warmed to nearly the heat of the atmosphere, then a few airy globules begin to separate themselves, and adhere to the sides of the glass, and in a few hours a light copper coloured scum begins to float on the surface, after which an ochreous sediment settles at the bottom. Long continued rains sometimes give the water a milky appearance, but do not otherwise sensibly affect it. From the experiments of different physicians, it appears that the component parts of this water are, steely particles, marine salts, an oily matter, an ochreous substance, simple water, and a volatile vitriolic spirit, too subtile for any chemical analysis. In weight it is, in seven ounces and a quarter, four grains lighter than the German Spa (to which it is preferable on that account) and ten grains lighter than common water; with syrup of violets this water gives a deep green, as vitriols do. (fn. 3) It requires five drops of oleum sulphuris, or elixir of vitriol, to a quart of water, to preserve its virtues to a distance from the spring.

 

This water is said to be an impregnation of rain in some of the neighbouring eminences, which abound in iron mineral, where it is further enriched with the marine salts and all the valuable ingredients, which constitute it a light and pure chalybeate, which instantly searches the most remote recesses of the human frame, warms and invigorates the relaxed constitution, restores the weakened fibres to their due tone and elasticity, removes those obstructions to which the minuter vessels of the body are liable, and is consequently adapted to most cold chronical disorders, lowness of spirits, weak digestions, and nervous complaints. Dr. Lodowick Rowzee, of Ashford, in this county, wrote a Treatise of the Nature and Virtues of these Waters, printed in 12mo. 1671; and Dr. Patrick Madan wrote a Philosophical and Medical Essay on them, in 1687, in quarto.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp275-300

Châssis n°WP0ZZZ99ZTS394075

 

Estimation :

550.000 - 750.000 €

 

Invendu

Copic Sketch Color Markers with Tria Color Markers on Bristol Plate

 

Link to Photo Source: www.flickr.com/photos/rodneyvdb/5176031767/

 

Link to Flickr Artist Rodney van den Beemd's (Rodneyvdb) Flickr Photostream: www.flickr.com/photos/rodneyvdb/

 

This study shows pretty clearly my transparent layering working methods and how I work fractionally to build a picture structure. In trying to get an integration of head form with background, I layed on what might be thought of as a transparent color ground over the whole surface of the page. At the top of the page, you can see remnants of the original vertical color bands starting with yellow on the right and finishing with the strong blue on the left. These were arbitrary color choices and had nothing to do with colors in the study photo. They were intended simply to provide a bold background broken up into stripes which would play a dominant role in helping me to make subsequent color decisions. In many ways, I think we're often put off by the whiteness of a ground, thus we lay on a ground color to work into.

Following that, I started fitting in pieces of the puzzle, trying to keep layered colors in harmony with the ground colors below. So, for example, at the start I avoided putting a complement over its complement (say, red over green) as this would produce a dull grayed tone. I opted to keep the colors as clear as possible without producing dark "holes" in the composition. The overall unity of the surface is my goal. Working further, a structure started to emerge....armatures of color linking up with other units to begin to form a pleasing overall structure (in my estimation, that is).

  

Cameroonian Charaxes attracted to rotting shellfish. Near Dondi, Bertoua. 11 March 2016. By my estimation, clockwise from bottom left, Charaxes smaragdalis, brutus, mixtus, cynthia, tiridates, brutus, smaragdalis, cynthia, etesipe, brutus, etesipe, cynthia, cynthia, lucretius.

Still playing around with this. Each one is taking about 5 to 10 minutes to shoot with the shutter open and let the camera process to reduce noise. This is single exposure, one continuous stream of light, movement.

 

No assistants. Just me guessing where I am in the image, and trying to make estimations on how much light to project on my face while remaining pretty still. Definitely challenging.

 

Experimenting with multiple images of self.

At 21:47 GMT, the equinox happened, and so from then on, light is destined to win over darkness. Which meant, of course, that the day before then was the shortest "day", or amount of daylight.

 

This is the end of the year, the build up and excitement before Christmas, and at the same time, looking back at the year, and what has happened in the previous 50 or so weeks. So, a time of mixed emotions, good and bad, happy and sad.

 

But I was on vacation, or not going to work.

 

I am not up to date, but I did all the tasks I was supposed to do, threw a few electronic grenades over the walls, and was now happy not to think of that shit for two whole weeks.

 

For Jools, however, there was half a day to do, and then her employers paid for all those employed at the factory to go to a fancy place in Folkestone for lunch, drinks at the bar and a bottle of wine between four folks.

 

It was, in short, a time for celebration. Something I realise has not happened in my job since I left operational quality, to be happy and give thanks to those we work with. And be recognised for the good job we do.

 

So, I was to take Jools to work, and have the car for the day.

 

Jools was conscious that my plan for the day involved driving to the far west of Kent, so realised I needed an early start, and not dropping her off in Hythe at seven.

 

We left after coffee just after six, driving through Dover and Folkestone on the main road and motorway before turning over the downs into Hythe. I dropped her off in the town, so she could get some walking in. She always didn't walk, as waves of showers swept over the town, and me as I drove back home for breakfast and do all the chores before leaving on a mini-churchcrawl.

 

So, back home for breakfast, more coffee, wash up, do the bird feeders and with postcodes, set out for points in the extreme west. Now, Kent is not a big county, not say, Texas big, but it takes some time to get to some parts of the west of the county. Main roads run mainly from London to the coast, so going cross-country or cross-county would take time.

 

At first it was as per normal up the A20 then onto the motorway to Ashford then to Maidstone until the junction before the M26 starts. One of the reasons for going later was to avoid rush hours in and around Maidstone, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

 

As it was, after turning down the A road, things were fine until I got to Mereworth, but from there the road began to twist and turn until it lead me into Tonbridge. Once upon a time, this was a sleepy village or small town. The the railways came and it became a major junction. The road to Penshurt took me though the one way system, then down the wide High Street, over the river Medway and up the hill the other side.

 

Two more turns took me to my target, through what were once called stockbroker mansions, then down a hill, with the village laid out before me just visible through the trees.

 

The village was built around the outskirts of Penshurst Place, home to the Sidney family since Tudor times. Just about everything is named the Leicester something, the village having its own Leicester Square, though with no cinemas, and all timber framed houses and painfully picturesque.

 

The church lays behind the houses, the tower in golden sandstone topped with four spirelets.

 

I parked the car, and armed with two cameras, several lenses and a photographer's eye, walked to the church.

 

The reason for coming was I can only remember a little about my previous visit, but the Leicester name thing triggered in my head the thought the memorials and tombs might be worth a revisit.

 

So there I was.

 

Gilbert Scott was very busy here, so there is little of anything prior to the 19th century, but the memorials are there. Including one which features the heads of the children of Robert Sidney (d1702) in a cloud. Including the eldest son who died, apparently, so young he wasn't named, and is recorded as being the first born.

 

This is in the Sidney Chapel where the great and good are buried and remembered, it has a colourful roof, or roof beams, and heraldic shields. It has a 15th century font, which, sadly, has been brightly painted so is gaudy in the extreme.

 

I go around getting my shots, leave a fiver for the church. Go back to the car and program Speldhurst into the sat nav.

 

Its just a ten minute drive, but there is no place to park anywhere near the church. I could see from my slow drive-by the porch doors closed, and I convinced myself they were locked and not worth checking out.

 

I went on to Groombridge, where there is a small chapel with fabulous glass. I had been here before too, but wanted to redo my shots.

 

It was by now pouring with rain, and as dark as twilight, I missed the church on first pass, went to the mini-roundabout only to discover that it and the other church in the village were in Sussex. I turned round, the church looked dark and was almost certainly locked. I told myself.

 

I didn't stop here either, so instead of going to the final village church, I went straigh to Tunbridge Wells where there was another church to revisit.

 

I drove into the town, over the man road and to the car park with no waiting in traffic, how odd, I thought.

 

It was hard to find a parking space, but high up in the parking house there were finally spaced. I parked near the stairs down, grabbed my cameras and went down.

 

I guess I could have parked nearer the church, but once done it would be easier to leave the town as the road back home went past the exit.

 

I ambled down the hill leading to the station, over the bridge and down the narrow streets, all lined with shops. I think its fair to say that it is a richer town than Dover because on one street there were three stores offering beposke designer kitchens.

 

The church is across the road from the Georgian square known at The Pantiles, but it was the church I was here to visit.

 

I go in, and there is a service underway. I decide to sit at the back and observe.

 

And pray.

 

I did not take communion, though. The only one there who didn't.

 

About eight elderly parishioners did, though.

 

I was here to photograph the ceiling, and then the other details I failed to record when we were last here over a decade ago.

 

I was quizzed strongly by a warden as to why I was doing this. I had no answer other than I enjoyed it, and for me that is enough.

 

After getting my shots, I leave and begin the slog back up to the car, but on the way keeping my promise to a young man selling the Big Issue that I would come back and buy a copy. I did better than that in that I gave him a fiver and didn't take a copy.

 

He nearly burst into tears. I said, there is kindness in the world, and some of us do keep our promises.

 

By the time I got to the car park, it was raining hard again. I had two and a half hours to get to Folkestone to pick up Jools after her meal.

 

Traffic into Tunbridge Wells from this was was crazy, miles and miles of queues, so I was more than happy going the other way.

 

I get back to the M20, cruise down to Ashford, stopping at Stop 24 services for a coffee and something to eat. I had 90 minutes to kill, so eat, drink and scroll Twitter as I had posted yet more stuff that morning. In other news: nothing changed, sadly.

 

At quarter past four I went to pick up Jools, stopping outside the restaurant. When she got in she declared she had been drinking piña coladas. Just two, but she was bubby and jabbering away all the way home.

 

With Jools having eaten out, and with snacks I had, no dinner was needed, so when suppertime came round, we dined on cheese and crackers, followed by a large slice of Christmas cake.

 

She was now done for Christmas too.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

The red brick church stands on a busy junction at the end of the Pantiles whose patrons it was built to serve in 1678. Within thirty years it had been extended on two occasions to more or less reach its present size. The ceiling bears the date 1678 and is rather domestic in character, based on deep circular domes with putti, palms and swags. The stained glass in the east window is based on a picture by Alex Ender and was designed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1901. There is an excellent window under the north gallery designed by Lawrence Lee in 1969. The church was sympathetically restored by Ewan Christian in 1882, when the shallow chancel was added. The woodwork it contains was brought from one of Wren's City of London churches. Outside the west wall of the church, set into the footpath, is a boundary marker to show the former parish boundaries of Tonbridge and Speldhurst.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Tunbridge+Wells+1

 

-------------------------------------------

  

The large and populous hamlet or village of TUNBRIDGE-WELLS is situated at the south-east boundary of this parish; part of it only is in Speldhurst, another part in the parish of Tunbridge, and the remainder in that of Fant, in the county of Suffex. It consists of four smaller districts, named from the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, and Mount Sion; the other is called The Wells, from their being within it, which altogether form a considerable town; but the last is the centre of business and pleasure, for there, besides the Wells themselves, are the market, public parades, assembly rooms, taverns, shops, &c. Near the Wells is the chapel, which stands remarkably in the three parishes above mentioned—the pulpit in Speldhurst, the altar in Tunbridge, and the vestry in Fant, and the stream, which parted the two counties of Kent and Suffex, formerly ran underneath it, but is now turned to a further distance from it. The right of patronage is claimed by the rector of Speldhurst, though he has never yet possessed the chapel or presented to it; the value of it is about two hundred pounds per annum, which sum is raised by voluntary subscription; divine service is performed in it every day in summer, and three times a week in winter. Adjoining to it is a charity school, for upwards of fifty poor boys and girls, which is supported by a contribution, collected at the chapel doors, two or three times a year.

 

The trade of Tunbridge-wells is similar to that of Spa, in Germany, and consists chiefly in a variety of toys, made of wood, commonly called Tunbridge ware, which employs a great number of hands. The wood principally used for this purpose is beech and sycamore, with yew and holly inlaid, and beautifully polished. To the market of this place is brought, in great plenty, from the South downs, in Sussex, the little bird, called the wheatear, which, from its delicacy, is usually called the English ortolan. It is not bigger in size than a lark; it is almost a lump of fat, and of a very delicious taste; it is in season only in the midst of summer, when the heat of the weather, and the fatness of it, prevents its being sent to London, which otherwise would, in all likelihood, monopolize every one of them. On the other or Suffex side of the Medway, above a mile from the Wells, are the rocks, which consist of a great number of rude eminences, adjoining to each other, several of which are seventy feet in height; in several places there are cliffs and chasms which lead quite through the midst of them, by narrow gloomy passages, which strike the beholder with astonishment.

 

THESE MEDICINAL WATERS, commonly called TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, lie so near to the county of Suffex that part of them are within it, for which reason they were for some time called Fant-wells, as being within that parish. (fn. 1) Their efficacy is reported to have been accidentally found out by Dudley lord North, in the beginning of the reign of king James I. Whilst he resided at Eridge-house for his health, lord Abergavenny's seat, in this neighbourhood, and that he was entirely cured of the lingering consumptive disorder he laboured under by the use of them.

 

The springs, which were then discovered, seem to have been seven in number, two of the principal of which were some time afterwards, by lord Abergavenny's care, inclosed, and were afterwards much resorted to by many of the middling and lower sort, whose ill health had real occasion for the use of them. In which state they continued till queen Henrietta Maria, wife of king Charles I. having been sent hither by her physicians, in the year 1630, for the reestablishment of her health, soon brought these waters into fashion, and occasioned a great resort to them from that time. In compliment to her doctor, Lewis Rowzee, in his treatise on them, calls these springs the Queen's-wells; but this name lasted but a small time, and they were soon afterwards universally known by that of Tunbridge-wells, which names they acquired from the company usually residing at Tunbridge town, when they came into these parts for the benefit of drinking the waters.

 

The town of Tunbridge being five miles distant from the wells, occasioned some few houses to be built in the hamlets of Southborough and Rusthall, for the accommodation of the company resorting hither, and this place now becoming fashionable, was visited by numbers for the sake of pleasure and dissipation, as well as for the cure of their infirmities; and soon after the Restoration every kind of building, for public amusements, was erected at the two hamlets above mentioned, lodgings and other buildings were built at and near the wells, the springs themselves were secured, and other conveniencies added to them. In 1664, the queen came here by the advice of her physicians, in hopes of reinstating her health, which was greatly impaired by a dangerous fever, and her success, in being perfectly cured by these waters, greatly raised the reputation of them, and the company increasing yearly, it induced the inhabitants to make every accommodation for them adjoining to the Wells, so that both Rusthall and Southborough became ruinous and deserted by all but their native inhabitants. The duke of York, with his duchess, and the two princesses their daughters, visited Tunbridge-wells in the year 1670, which brought much more company than usual to them, and raised their reputation still higher; and the annual increase continuing, it induced the lord of the manor to think of improving this humour of visiting the wells to his own profit as well as the better accommodation of the company. To effect which, he entered into an agreement with his tenants, and hired of them the herbage of the waste of the manor for the term of fifty years, at the yearly rent of ten shillings to each tenant, and then erected shops and houses on and near the walks and springs, in every convenient spot for that purpose; by which means Tunbridge wells became a populous and flourishing village, well inhabited, for whose convenience, and the company resorting thither, a chapel was likewise built, in 1684, by subscription, on some ground given by the lady viscountess Purbeck, which was, about twelve years afterwards, enlarged by an additional subscription, amounting together to near twenty-three hundred pounds.

 

About the year 1726, the building lease, which had been granted by the lord of the manor of Rusthall, in which this hamlet is situated, expiring, the tenants of the manor claimed a share in the buildings, as a compensation for the loss of the herbage, which was covered by his houses. This occasioned a long and very expensive law suit between them, which was at last determined in favour of the tenants, who were adjudged to have a right to a third part of the buildings then erected on the estate, in lieu of their right to the herbage; upon which all the shops and houses, which had been built on the manor waste, were divided into three lots, of which the tenants were to draw one, and the other two were to remain to the lord of the manor; the lot which the tenants drew was the middle one, which included the assembly room on the public walk, which has since turned out much the most advantageous of the three. After which long articles of agreement, in 1739, were entered into between Maurice Conyers, esq. then lord of the manor of Rusthall, and the above mentioned tenants of it, in which, among many other matters, he agreed to permit the public walks and wells, and divers other premises there, to be made use of for the public benefit of the nobility and gentry resorting thereto, and several regulations were made in them concerning the walks, wells, and wastes of the manor, and for the restraining buildings on the waste, between the lord and his tenants, according to a plan therein specified; all which were confirmed and established by an act of parliament, passed in 1740. Since which several of the royal family have honoured these wells with their presence, and numbers of the nobility and persons of rank and fashion yearly resortto them, so that this place is now in a most flourishing state, having great numbers of good houses built for lodgings, and every other necessary accommodation for the company. Its customs are settled; the employment of the dippers regulated; (fn. 2) its pleasures regulated; its markets well and plentifully supplied, at a reasonable rate, with sowl, fish, meat, every other kind of food, and every convenience added that can contribute to give health and pleasure.

 

¶The whole neighbourhood of Tunbridge-wells abounds with springs of mineral water, but as the properties of all are nearly the same, only those two, which at the first discovery of them were adjudged the best, are held in any particular estimation. These two wells are enclosed with a handsome triangular stone wall; over the springs are placed two convenient basons of Portland stone, with perforations at the bottom; one of them being given by queen Anne, and the other by the lord of the manor; through which they receive the water, which at the spring is extremely clear and bright. Its taste is steely, but not disagreeable; it has hardly any smell, though sometimes, in a dense air, its ferruginous exhalations are very distinguishable. In point of heat it is invariably temperate, the spring lying so deep in the earth, that neither the heat of summer, nor the cold of winter, affects it. When this water is first taken up in a large glass, its particles continue at rest till it is warmed to nearly the heat of the atmosphere, then a few airy globules begin to separate themselves, and adhere to the sides of the glass, and in a few hours a light copper coloured scum begins to float on the surface, after which an ochreous sediment settles at the bottom. Long continued rains sometimes give the water a milky appearance, but do not otherwise sensibly affect it. From the experiments of different physicians, it appears that the component parts of this water are, steely particles, marine salts, an oily matter, an ochreous substance, simple water, and a volatile vitriolic spirit, too subtile for any chemical analysis. In weight it is, in seven ounces and a quarter, four grains lighter than the German Spa (to which it is preferable on that account) and ten grains lighter than common water; with syrup of violets this water gives a deep green, as vitriols do. (fn. 3) It requires five drops of oleum sulphuris, or elixir of vitriol, to a quart of water, to preserve its virtues to a distance from the spring.

 

This water is said to be an impregnation of rain in some of the neighbouring eminences, which abound in iron mineral, where it is further enriched with the marine salts and all the valuable ingredients, which constitute it a light and pure chalybeate, which instantly searches the most remote recesses of the human frame, warms and invigorates the relaxed constitution, restores the weakened fibres to their due tone and elasticity, removes those obstructions to which the minuter vessels of the body are liable, and is consequently adapted to most cold chronical disorders, lowness of spirits, weak digestions, and nervous complaints. Dr. Lodowick Rowzee, of Ashford, in this county, wrote a Treatise of the Nature and Virtues of these Waters, printed in 12mo. 1671; and Dr. Patrick Madan wrote a Philosophical and Medical Essay on them, in 1687, in quarto.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp275-300

For more stories like this, visit www.jaysjourneys.com.

 

The Back-Story

 

I had tried unsuccessfully 3 times to hike the High Divide loop this year. The first time I just got lazy and decided that a weekend at home sounded nice. The second time, my job at the last minute required me to be at home for some on-line training over the weekend. The third time I was due for an overnight hike and thought I would drive out to the campground at Sol Duc on a Saturday, camp and get a really early start the next morning and do the whole loop in a day. As I was packing to leave on Saturday the 19th, I got a phone call and learned that my brother had passed away. Needless to say my plans for the weekend had changed. I won’t get into all the details but I will say that his passing was unexpected and the cause at this point is unknown. Needing time to reflect on his life, needing some time to myself to reflect on the things that are important to me and my family and really needing to finally get this trail on my ‘been there done that’ list, I decided to head out on Saturday the 26th of Sept 2009 to hike it.

  

The Hike

 

I got up at 4:45 AM and was out the door by 5:00. Driving from Silverdale, I got to the trailhead at 7:15 AM, beating Google Maps drive time prediction by 15 minutes. I was on the trail at 7:20 and it was already light out but the sun had not yet arrived in the Sol Duc River Valley. Taking my time hiking, not wanting to maintain a breakneck speed, yet not taking much in the way of rest breaks, I figured if I maintained a 2 mph pace throughout the hike I would be done with the hike in about 9 hours or so. I figured I should be done around 4:30 PM giving me plenty of daylight left as this time of the year it gets dark around 7:15 PM. So after hiking for a couple miles, I had Yogi on the brain and I was intermittently calling out “hey bear, Yogi bear” to give warning to any bears that might be in the area, even though I knew they were probably all up in the higher alpine zone eating berries. After calling out to the bears on my third or fourth time, I heard a crashing in the woods to my left. I looked up to see what was moving and it was a big Roosevelt bull elk. He ran up the trail in front of me and paused long enough for me to take his picture but my flash went off and the picture came out black. The elk ran again and I figured he was gone so I put my camera away. No more than 500 yards up the trail, I look up and there he is again, standing in the middle of the trail. I dug my camera out to shoot him but he was on to me and he bolted again. OK, this time I’m not going to put the camera away. I hiked on and he was on the trail again just like last time except now I had my camera out, I just needed to turn it on. Snap, damn flash again! This time he runs up hill. I tried desperately to take his picture but it just wasn’t meant to be I guess. I did get one but it was so blurry you can barely tell there is an Elk in it. Oh well. I hiked on. Before coming here I had asked a few people which was the best direction to go on the loop. Clockwise or CCW? I received advice from both people claiming one way was better than the other. In the end, I listened to my friend Mike’s reasoning that the lighting was better for photos during the time of day I would be hiking if I went CW, but I can see why a lot of people would go the other direction, the views are different. If you go clockwise, you will have a long gradual approach before you gain much elevation. It is mostly a river valley hike in the woods for a good 5 or 6 miles before you get many views. Eventually you do start to climb a little and you will get to Sol Duc Park where there is a campground. I didn’t see anyone at the campground when I arrived, in fact I only saw one couple on the trail up to this point. They were camped at the little campsite at Rocky Creek near the Appleton Pass junction and it looked like they had just woke up. I had already been on the trail for a couple of hours by that point. When you get close to Sol Duc Park, the forest opens up a little and there are some nice meadows filled with blueberries. My sense of smell is not what it used to be, due to allergies and medications to allergies I have taken in the past. Something has to have a pretty strong scent usually before I can smell it, so maybe it was my imagination or maybe it was real, but I could swear I could smell the blueberries. It smelled just like blueberry pie to me, and it was such a strong scent. The blueberries themselves were everywhere. I stopped several times to munch on them, they were fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many blueberries, the bushes were just loaded with them. The bears wouldn’t go hungry this year! So after Sol Duc Park, the trail climbs again for a mile or two and crosses a little stream. The creek is the outlet stream of Heart Lake. I have seen Heart in pictures on-line and in books for many years and was excited to see it in person. When I got close, a couple returning from their overnight hike stopped and I asked them if they had seen any bears. The gentleman said that he saw the biggest bear he had ever seen the night before near the privy and said it must have weighed at least a thousand pounds. I pointed out the bear I could see up on the mountainside that looked like a speck it was so far away. Him and his wife said they saw it earlier but had lost track of it and were happy to see it again. Now I don’t know if black bears get up to a thousand lbs or not, but I will take his word that it was a big bear. I’m not surprised really with the amount of berries they have to eat this year. So I finally reach Heart Lake and I’m not too impressed. Maybe it’s all the people congregating near the outlet stream as I first see it, I don’t know. I didn’t even stop. I just kept on hiking past it. Once I got near the top and looked down, I was much happier and could see the famous heart shape it was named for. I was very close to my first views of Olympus and I was pretty stoked! I hiked on and finally reached the divide. It was magnificent. Olympus was much bigger than I imagined. Of course I had seen Olympus before, just never this close. I was very impressed. I hiked a little further and stopped to take a bunch of pictures and videos. I could see clouds down in the Hoh Valley and I wanted to make sure I got some good shots before any clouds obscured the view. After taking a bunch of photos, I was standing there just mesmerized by the beauty of the whole thing, reflecting on the hike. Thinking about my brother and the life he led. Thinking about my life and what I could do to improve upon it, how I could be a better husband and father. All of a sudden, during my reverie, some of the clouds from the valley started spinning around all crazy like and I took what I consider to be one of the better photos I have ever taken. It certainly is odd to say the least. I won’t go so far as to say I see Jesus in it or that its anything other than a big swirl in the cloud, but look at it and let it speak for itself. I don’t think I could ever come close to taking that picture again, even if I made it my life’s ambition. I think it was a one in a million shot, at least for me. So getting done with the photo shoot, I hike on and start seeing more people on the trail. I get to a point where I can finally see the Seven Lakes Basin and I pass a guy with a day pack coming from the other way. I said to him “nice day for a day hike”. He said it was and that he thought we were at about the half way point. I looked at my GPS and we were indeed about 9 miles into it. The trip was half over. On I hiked with Olympus on the left of me and the Lakes Basin on the right. Expansive views in every direction. These are the reasons for which I hike. Soon I came to a little side trail and there was a guy sitting there picking blueberries. After consulting my map I came to the conclusion that this was the side trail to Bogachiel Peak. I asked the blueberry picker how far it was to the top and he said “only five minutes, definitely worth it”. Two minutes later as I stood at the top, someone’s cell phone rings and he starts a conversation with someone else, laughing about how he can’t believe he has reception up here blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bogachiel was too crowded for me so I took a couple pictures and left. The berry picker asked how I liked it and I said it was nice but a little crowded. He apologized and said that was his group up there which made me feel like a jerk for saying that. Sometimes I forget that the mountains are for everyone and not just my own pleasure. It’s hard to share sometimes but I don’t go there to be around people and phones and all that nonsense. I go to the mountains to free myself from it. To be able to fart or scratch my butt whenever I want to, or unlike when I’m in my car, to actually be able to pick my nose and not be seen doing so! I won’t go so far as to say that I’m looking forward to hike naked day, but I think you catch my drift. Soon I’m walking over to the junction of the Hoh Trail which rests on a neat little saddle. There are more people congregating here so I pass them and take a few shots of the junction which also marks the beginning of my downhill trek and final leg of the hike. Only 8 miles to the car! So on the way down, the trail skirts below Bogachiel Peak and with the fall colors, the hillside is very beautiful. As I’m hiking down I keep hearing a shrill whistle that I think is a hawk but all I see flying around is a big raven. I keep hiking and the whistle gets louder and louder occurs every time the big raven flies by. I notice movement on the hillside and see a great big old marmot watching me and I realize that it is the marmot whistling not a hawk. So this is why it’s called a whistle pig. I have seen lots of Marmots before, but I never recall hearing one whistle. It is much louder than I thought it would be. It must have been whistling to warn it’s friends of the big raven that was flying around. Down the trail I went, looking over my shoulder the whole way to see what I might have missed by doing the trail clockwise. Soon I was at the Seven Lakes Basin trail. I passed a couple of ladies on their way up and they said hi as we passed. One of the ladies turned and said “oh by the way there is a big bear sitting on the trail about 40 paces down the way”. I say oh really? She says no just kidding. Hardy har har. I actually wanted to see a bear other than one so far away it looked like a little speck, oh well. After a while I let a couple of people pass me as they keep gaining on me every time I stop to take a picture. Before long I am passing them again as they stop to throw rocks in an un-named lake just before Deer Lake. I stop too as I haven’t had lunch yet and I wanted to give them a chance to hike ahead of me so I don’t have to listen to them prattle on about God knows what (did I mention I enjoy my solitude?). It must have been around 2:00 PM or so when I stopped and it was nice to take a break after so many hours without really stopping for more than five minutes at a time. I took a good 20 minute break, ate a sandwich and took some pictures of the little lake. Soon I was hiking again and came to another lake, could this be the Deer Lake I see on the map? More photos of the nice reflections on the lake and I was off again. Not much further and I see a little wooden boardwalk style trail going through a marshy area and I see a sign that says welcome to Deer Lake. Oh good, now only a little over 3 ½ miles to go. Up to this point in my hiking career, the farthest I have ever hiked was a trip I did when I was much younger up to Flapjack Lakes and back which, if memory serves me correctly is about 16 miles round trip. On this hike I felt pretty tired at about mile 12 but once I got to around mile 16 I felt like a second wind had come on. Down the trail I went, deeper into the valley towards the Sol Duc. I eventually came to a bridge crossing the Canyon Creek which the trail follows from Deer Lake. Not much farther now. I finally reached Sol Duc Falls. There were people milling about and I felt kind of sorry for them. Sol Duc Falls is pretty but nothing compared to what I had seen today. Oh yeah, as an afterthought I took a picture of the falls too. Only .7 miles to go! Up ahead I saw someone that looked familiar. It was the day hiker that I passed going the other way at the top of the divide. I called to him and he slowed down to let me catch up so we could chit-chat. I compared notes with him and found out that he started hiking only five minutes earlier than I did. Upon further investigation I discovered that he had been to several of the same hikes that I had done this year. We both hiked Burroughs Mountain at Mount Rainier on the same weekend. We both hiked some of the same hikes in the gorge this spring. We both hiked Umtanum over near Yakima this year. What a small world, and how odd to go in different directions of the loop starting and ending at almost the exact same times. Before I knew it I was back at my car. The time was 4:40 PM so I was pretty close to my estimation of 9 hours hiking time. What a great hike. Maybe I will do it again next year from the other direction.

 

This trip report is dedicated to the memory of my brother Jeff Steveson.

Aug 25th 1959 – Sept 19th 2009

Rest in Peace Brother

  

Le Kapellbrücke était le plus ancien, et, après celui de Bad Säckingen, le plus long pont couvert en bois d'Europe.

Le nom de Kapellbrücke (pont de la chapelle) s'explique par la proximité de la chapelle Saint-Pierre. Construit en 1333, il est reconstruit en 1994 après un incendie.

Le pont figure dans la chronique d'Etterlin en 1507 ce qui permet d'avoir une estimation de sa forme à l'époque.

Le pont a été encore raccourci en 1898 lors de la construction d'un quai sur les rives du lac.

La Wasserturm se trouve au milieu du pont. De forme octogonale, elle mesure 34 mètres de haut et aurait été construite aux alentours de 1300. Elle abrita anciennement les archives et les objets précieux de la ville, mais servit également de prison et de local de torture.

 

The Kapellbrücke was the oldest and, after the one in Bad Säckingen, the longest covered wooden bridge in Europe.

The name Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) derives from its proximity to St. Peter's Chapel. Built in 1333, it was rebuilt in 1994 after a fire.

The bridge appears in the Etterlin Chronicle in 1507, which allows us to estimate its shape at the time.

The bridge was further shortened in 1898 during the construction of a quay on the lake shore.

The Wasserturm (Water Tower) is located in the middle of the bridge. Octagonal in shape, it is 34 meters high and is believed to have been built around 1300. It formerly housed the city's archives and valuables, but also served as a prison and torture chamber.

Chantilly 2016 - Concours d'élégance

 

Commentaire Artcurial lors de Retromobile février 2016

 

1995 Bugatti EB110 Super Sport

Carte grise française

Châssis n° ZA9BB02E0RCD39017

Moteur n° 0103

 

- Histoire et provenance exceptionnelles

- Livrée avec un deuxième moteur neuf

- Voiture du record de vitesse sur glace en 1995

- Très faible kilométrage (1 373 km)

- Modèle exceptionnellement performant et rare

 

Le développement des supercars à transmission intégrale a donné l'idée à Gildo Pallanca Pastor, amateur de compétition automobile, actuel directeur de Venturi et membre de la famille Pastor, entrepreneurs monégasques fortunés, de battre le record de vitesse sur glace. Initialement prévue avec une Porsche Turbo, la tentative sera finalement effectuée à bord de cette Bugatti EB110 SS qu'il achète neuve à l'usine. Préparée en Italie (avec principalement une adaptation des rapports de boîte et la pose d'un lest de 270 kg) la voiture est acheminée en Finlande, à proximité de la ville d'Oulu, sur une piste de 7 km. Elle est équipée de simples pneus à lamelles de série, sans clous et, le 3 mars 1995, Gildo Pallanca Pastor atteint la vitesse de 315 km/h, la FIA homologuant finalement 296,34 km/h. Cette performance a bien résisté dans le temps puisque le record n'a été battu qu'en mars 2013, par une Audi RS6.

Lors d'une interview accordée le 2 mai 2013 à Monaco Hebdo, Gildo Pallanca Pastor précisait : "C'était le 3 mars 1995 à Oulu, en Finlande, sur une mer gelée. J'ai atteint une vitesse finale de 315 km/h avec des pneus sans clous. C'était un record assez insensé car je voyais les vagues au bout de la piste. Le plus grand challenge était d'ailleurs de ne pas me retrouver dans l'eau. J'ai eu droit à tout. Aux rennes qui traversaient la piste par exemple... Les Finlandais étaient en tout cas assez intrigués de voir un Monégasque aller plus vite qu'eux sur la glace..."

 

C'est la voiture de ce record que nous présentons aujourd'hui. Elle fait partie des quelque 31 exemplaires de Bugatti EB110 SS produites. Apparu en 1992, ce modèle était plus puissant et plus léger, disposant de 603 ch à 8 250 tr/mn. Il était capable d'atteindre une vitesse de pointe de 355 km/h et de passer de 0 à 100 km/h en 3,26 secondes. Voiture plus exclusive que les 106 exemplaires de McLaren F1, ses performances sont comparables, avec une plus grande facilité d'utilisation grâce à ses 4 roues motrices et son V12 3,5 litres suralimenté par quatre turbocompresseurs.

 

En parfait état de présentation, cette voiture du record sur glace a vraisemblablement reçu un voile de peinture par les ateliers Monaco Racing Team il y a quelques années. Quelques très légers éclats de peintures apparaissent au niveau des ouvertures de portes ou sur le bouclier avant mais cela est vraiment anecdotique. La carrosserie est ornée des quelques stickers Michelin et Elf qui soutenaient Gildo Pastor dans son record. Vierge de toute usure, l'habitacle présente des cuirs, moquettes et joints impeccables, et le compartiment moteur est très propre. Doté d'une carte grise française et d'un contrôle technique vierge de tout défaut l'auto est tout simplement exceptionnelle.

Plusieurs éléments seront livrés avec : une housse sur mesure, et les quatre jantes évoquant celles de la Bugatti Royale et avec lesquelles le record du monde a été établi ! Un second moteur neuf sur palette (B110-01-003) accompagnera également la voiture ainsi que le manuel d'entretien et de réglage usine !

 

Très attaché à cette voiture, Gildo Pallanca Pastor l'a conservée précieusement pendant plusieurs années à Monaco avant de la vendre l'année dernière à un autre collectionneur de la marque. Cette Bugatti EB110 SS, dont le compteur n'affiche que 1 373 km, fonctionne très bien et bénéficiera d'une révision effectuée avant la vente. Elle a été récemment exposée au 32e Festival Bugatti au parc des Jésuites de Molsheim, en septembre dernier, où elle s'est rendue par la route. Depuis, elle a régulièrement roulé entre les mains de son second propriétaire sur les routes d'Alsace.

Pièce d'exception, elle témoigne du début de l'époque des hypercars et de la course à la puissance et à la vitesse qu'ils ont engendré. A ses performances et son faible kilométrage, elle ajoute la rareté et la performance historique que constitue son record.

  

French title

Chassis n° ZA9BB02E0RCD39017

Engine n° 0103

 

- Exceptional history and provenance

- Delivered with a second brand new engine

- Ice speed record car in 1995

- Very low mileage (1 373 km)

- Exceptionally rare and powerful car

 

The development of four-wheel drive supercars gave Gildo Pallanca Pastor, amateur racing driver, CEO of Venturi and member of the wealthy entrepreneurial Monegasque Pastor family, the idea of breaking the ice speed record.

The initial plan was to use a Porsche Turbo, but the attempt was finally made in this Bugatti EB110 SS, bought new from the factory. Prepared in Italy (which principally involved adapting the gearing and adding ballast of 270 kg), the car was taken to a 7 km track in Finland, near the city of Oulu. On 3 March 1995, fitted with regular production tyres, without spikes, Gildo Pallanca Pastor achieved a speed of 315 km/h, ultimately homologated by the FIA at 296,34 km/h. This record stood for some time and was only beaten in March 2013 by an Audi RS6.

During an interview on 2 May 2013 with the Monaco Hebdo, Gildo Pallanca Pastor said : " It was 3 March 1995 Oulu, in Finland, on the frozen sea. I reached a top speed of 315 km/h on tyres without spikes. It was a pretty crazy record as I could see waves at the end of the track. The greatest challenge was to avoid ending up in the water. I had it all. Reindeer crossing the track for example...In any case, the Finns were intrigued to see a Monagesque go faster than them on the ice... "

 

It is this record-breaking car that we are presenting today. It is one of some 31 examples of the Bugatti EB110 SS built. First appearing in 1992, this model was lighter and more powerful, producing some 603 bhp at 8 250 rpm. It was capable of a top speed of 355 km/h and travelled from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.26 seconds. A more exclusive car than the McLaren F1, with a comparable performance, it was easy to use with four-wheel drive and a V12 3.5-litre engine with four turbochargers.

 

Presented in perfect condition, this ice record-breaking car is likely to have had a layer of paint added in the Monaco Racing Team workshop a few years ago. There are a few incidental marks to the paintwork on the door openings and front bumper. The coachwork sports Michelin and Elf stickers, both sponsors of Gildo Pastor for his record attempt. The interior presents no wear at all and the leather, carpets and seals are immaculate. The engine compartment is also extremely clean. With a French title and new technical inspection (MOT), this car is simply outstanding. Items to be delivered with the car include : a made to measure cover, the four wheels, echoing those of the Bugatti Royale, that were used to break the world record ! A second engine on a palette (B110-01-003) will accompany the car along with the service book and factory record !

 

Very attached to this car, Gildo Pallanca Pastor kept it carefully for many years in Monaco, before selling it last year to another marque enthusiast. This Bugatti EB110 SS, with the odometer recording just 1 373 km, is in good running order and will be serviced before the sale. Last September the car was driven to, and exhibited at, the 32rd Bugatti Festival at the Jesuits' park in Molsheim. Since then it has been used regularly by its second owner on the roads in Alsace.

An exceptional lot, this car is a testament to the early period of hypercars and the race for power and speed that ensued. With such a performance and so few miles on the clock, this rare machine also boasts a history as a record-breaking car.

 

Estimation 800 000 - 1 200 000 €

Vendu 904,800 €

'Do you ever swear, Gavin?'

 

'Yeh Gav, how come you don’t ever say f*ck?'

 

'Or sh*t. Eh? How come you dinnae swear'

 

'Are you too gay?'

 

'Yeh! Are you a poof Gavin?'

 

'You look like a poof to me, ya poof'

 

And that was how that particular end started. Another day, another verbal kicking from the grotty and the great of class 3b, St Andrews Academy, Paisley. The words you have read above were the proud voices of your future. Scary isn't it? Every single day those creeps would whip themselves up into a clammer about something or other. From the moment you stepped onto the steamy early morning bus, to that blissful escape into the school yard at 3.30 in the afternoon you had to be tense, small and, if you could achieve the feat, invisible. If not, you were het, and if you were het, well nobody was going to step up and help you.

 

To begin with they would settle around you like flies on the proverbial. Sometimes they would acknowledge you; sometimes they would talk around, over and through you without ever addressing you. They were all too aware of the fact that you were there, you were scared and you were going nowhere. Their aim was to identify something that was different about you, with different being defined as bad. It could be anything from the make of your shoes to the place that you lived. All was game to them; it just never seemed that fair.

 

The thing I remember was that they were always bigger in some way. Particularly if you were me and you stood at a statuesque 5'2 long into your teenage years. The ones whose growth spurt had started in earnest used their jangling height and awkward limbs to nudge and judder you. Their uncoordinated new limbs bruising and grazing even when little harm was meant. Those who still had to look you in the eye would swell themselves with threats and demands. The smaller they were, the bigger the mouth seemed to be the rule. Either way, they were bigger, stronger and were always prepared to take things a step further than you ever could. As long as they had friends around.

 

Today was my turn. Today Christopher Burns, Derek Ferguson, Gary Kerr had chosen me as their wee plaything. I was a popular toy. I came from Edinburgh, different, I was polite, different, I worked hard, different, I hadn't kissed a girl, different, I had admitted I didn't know what a condom was, idiot.

 

On that day it was my lack of an appropriate 'street' vocabulary that was to lead to my latest bout of ignominy and opprobrium. The fact that I knew what those words meant but had little concept of what the c word was played a significant part in my downfall. On reflection, the earlier development of some sort of impression of their language might have been useful, but when you're running scared, thoughts tend to scatter rather than coalesce.

 

Anyway, as I was saying, the three turgid amigos were going to have their fun with me, and today there was nothing I could do about it. At the time my chosen protective stance was that of the meek tortoise. Close in the head, pull in the limbs, shut up the mouth and hope they get bored. It worked quite well in the corridors and the playgrounds and I swear there were times I came close to achieving the invisible benchmark noted previously.

 

The success of the tortoise came lay in the fact that if you remained static while all around you the world continued to move, there was usually too much stimulation for the never evolving minds of the bullies to cope with. Their thoughts would quickly scatter onto the next subject of their antagonising larks and they would flit away from your shell forgetting you were ever there.

 

This day was different though. Today I was trapped in a defined space that traps us all for the next 2 hours. Today was the day that Mrs Graham, the once admired French teacher, took my trust in her lovely, maternal hands, and snapped it across her knee. For no reason that I could discern then or now, she moved me. Shifted my seat from the nice warm table across from her desk. The table where my quiet friends sat and quietly learnt some of the quiet French she was teaching us.

 

My relocation was to the far corner of the room, to a 4-desk set up that now housed me, and the three aforementioned bullies. A small deed you may think? Well you think very wrong. This was feeding time at the zoo and I was the raw steak being hurled into the Tiger pen.

 

Why she did this I shall never know. Did I do her wrong? Were my 'Silvous Plait's and Je Voudrais not good enough for her? I mean, I could have expressed my emotions regarding the move in pigeon French, 'Je' m'apelle Gavin, j'ai peur'. Was that not reason enough to leave meek boys well alone? Apparently not. What was worse, those grubby cretins might not know have understood my French cry of despair, but they could clearly smell the sentiment a mile off.

 

It had already been a bad week, I was riding high in the bullying charts for whatever reason. Maybe because my Mum gave me Dunlop trainers rather than the much lobbied for LA Gear Regulators. Maybe it was because I had the temerity to ask the English teacher if I could be pardoned and go to the loo, or maybe I was getting shoddy at the whole tortoise thing.

 

Already I had suffered the perfect crack of a wet towel across my thighs in the sub medieval torture chamber that was the PE changing room. In Home Economics, where we learned how to achieve domestic tranquility, I turned around on my seat just in time to see a folder containing scone recipes swinging with a swingeing swipe at my face. As for Craft and Design, well lordy, I don't know if I can even go into that! I don't know what it was about Tech department teachers but they always seemed in an unseemly rush to leave those angry bags of hormones alone with us quivering sacks of nerves in rooms laden with an armies worth of potential instruments. I can't count the number of times my hand was forcibly held in a vice or a soldering iron was waved in front of my dilating eyes.

 

That week the teacher’s witless plan was to leave us alone with a video about suspension bridges. Fine you say, where lies the harm in that? Well, the harm emerges when the importance of adequate suspension was demonstrated by a slow motion video of a real girl in a real bra, with real breast jogging in really slow motion. I should admit that this was such a formative moment in my early sexual life, and when I say early sexual life, I mean the time when you try to figure out what bit goes where, and how. I also still remember everything about those breasts and have, since that day, found an odd sexual frisson run over my body whenever I approach a suitable engineered bridge.

 

Regardless, the short-term impact was barely worth all of that input. Every single girl, whether they had bloomed into the higher end of the bra cup scale or were still awaiting the onset of their curves, folded their arms in acute embarrassment while the likes of Derek, Gary, Christoper et al span around the room like agitated, spermed up gibbons. Rubbers were thrown, stools toppled, bags were emptied, girls ogled and the video paused, played, rewound, paused and played again. In a way the whole lesson was like a primitive S&M experience, newfound pleasure grazing up against untold pain and fear. Was it any wonder I had so many hard questions to ask of the R.E teacher. Life didn't seem to follow a path informed by the will of a kindly deity. The meek and good life I tried to lead was taking me into some pretty jagged dead ends and the thought that, even if us shy ones were to inherit the earth, we were going to get a hell of a kicking while we waited for ascension.

 

Well, this narrative has wandered has it not? Point is, it had been a bad week already and then I find myself am sat in this room, this one classroom where I used to feel safe, and those fools were sitting all around me. It's probably worth explaining why I was so fond of this class? Why of all the places that this brutal decanting of my youthful self could have taken place in, this would have been the last one I would have picked. One of the main things was that the room stood in opposition to the dilapidation that marred the rest of the building. There were times when it felt like that awful old school was demolishing itself before our very eyes. The toilets were permanently awash with youthful urine and second hand water that seeped out from the leaking pipes and up the trouser legs of all its patrons. The supporting walls moved so easily that if you leant against them with any force you found yourself reclining at awkward angles. As for the days it rained, well, you were as well standing outside as in. There was nothing about that shambles of a building that inspired pride or ownership the way a school should. The anonymous, tumbling old institution was an aesthetic nightmare that bogged down your thoughts the minute you trundled into it.

 

However, the French class was a world apart. It was clean, the walls and carpet (carpets for goodness sake, what luxury!) were a lovely light blue. The strip lighting never flickered and buzzed angrily like it did in every other class while the large north facing windows had a delightful, airy view of the fields and hills near the school. If one was inclined, you could take a break from your lesson and count the cows as they mowed the sloping drumlins in the distance. It had a freshness and security that felt right, that felt like an environment where you could focus on learning rather than survival.

 

What's more, in that class, I sat close to Mrs Graham. She was one of those teachers who was just the right age and of just the right attitude to remind me of my mother. This engendered some level of affection from me to her; she was like a safe chunk of home brought into my school life. I looked up to her, admired her gently firm stance on misbehaviour and misadventure and loved that she was not someone to fear, nor was she someone you would cross. The best thing about Mrs Graham though was that she never left her post. She was as faithful in her duties as the Royal Guards. Not once in our short time together did she walk out of this room, never once leaving us to the frenzy that always followed when a classroom was unsupervised. She knew what lay beneath, or at least I thought she did.

 

'Ho, d*ckhead! You gonnae answer us?' Derek’s nasal twangs buts into my godly wonderings. My inquest would not pass, I remember seeking some escape, some solution other than the endless escalation that was interaction. Mrs Graham was not far away, further than I would have liked, but still close. I could reach out for her, but deep down I knew that would be the end. I knew that she would react, I would be summoned to air my complaints and those boys would be punished. It would extricate me from my predicament for sure, but in relation to the ongoing battle between meek and wild it would have been the equivalent of throwing a water bomb at a teenage tank. The smallest, briefest win before those spotty tracks swung your way with deadly intent.

 

'Of course I swear' I said quietly. This was a lie. I didn't swear, I never swore. Well, once many years before I did call my Mum a b*stard but unless you entirely dismiss the concept of attribution and emotion, this one has to be chalked up as mere rote repetition by an ignorant 8 year old, no offence was intended nor understood as possible.

 

'Oh aye, and whit is it that you say?' says Christopher, grabbing the bone that was me and shaking it some more. I knew I was in trouble, but only then did I realise that I was locked into that most frustrating of traps, the logic loop of an idiot. Like a maze with only one corridor but no exit, it is inherently flawed yet devastatingly effective in its witless simplicity. You are in there; you know the limitations but are trapped by the very same thing. I hated them for it. I hated them for outsmarting me despite all their glaring flaws.

 

'I say lots, all the time. Just not very loudly' my defence was weak, porous and about to break. I was staring defeat in the face.

 

'Why don't you swear just now? Just one f*cking word and we'll leave you alone' says Gary. He always seemed the most sympathetic of them all, but here he had the scent and was more than happy to move on in. His final offer of release was a trap, but I promise that at that moment it looked like the kind of cloud lined sanctuary that all those priests and nutters had promised us for all those years.

 

Of course, I would have had to become a verbal martyr before I could lay my head down in that glorious condensation. Could I do this? Could I open my mouth and let fly a cuss, a curse, a naughty, a BAD word!?!? I didn't swear, I just don't, it was unthinkable. There seemed no need, no room, no point to the endless repetition of f's and c's and b's and w's and all the others that I didn’t even understand. Out there, away from the onetime harbour of peace that was French class, all you heard was the mindless blabbering of their grunting phrases. Sometimes they lay in some form of narrative context (I shall give them that) but other times were used to fill gaps while their sloppy synapses sluggishly formed some nonsensical sentence. I was not one of those people, I was not inclined, prone or even obliged to speak in such a careless, backwards way. There was no point to it and on this issue, I knew I was in the right, I knew virtue stood alongside me, hand gently placed upon my sloping, shaking shoulder.

 

But then, didn't he say they would leave me alone? Didn't my Edinburgh accent with it's smatterings of 'please' and 'may I' lie at the heart of so many of their aggressive deeds. Would it not be some grace on my part to bow down to their level, if only to reassure them that I too was just like them?

 

I looked around the table, their eyes were mocking and expectant, like football fans who see the ball bobbling in front of an open goal, they knew what the outcome was, they were just waiting for release. All around the room I could hear kind, gentle, homely 'Je'mappelle's' and 'J'ai 14 ans' and somewhere, a glorious 'J'ai deux souers'. Mrs Graham was firmly but generously admonishing someone for mixing up the etre verb, oh how I wished that was me. That glorious authoritative voice, if it was near me then I would have been in the clear. All of that was wishful thinking, this was my watershed. Was I to enter into a new world or stubbornly defend my own ways. Did I bow down to peer pressure and give up one more thing that makes me, me? Did I see enough worth in placing survival over pride? I considered all of this for a few seconds and then made my decision.

 

'F*ck' I said meekly.

 

'What's that!' said Christopher in a flash 'I didn't hear you' his voice rang with a mocking melody. Victory was his already, but he wanted to feel it some more.

 

'I said...' and my voice trailed off, but it was too late. I felt as if I had coughed up my heart and I knew there was no clawing it back in. I was more like them and that was that. With that one word I sank in my own estimation and yet still remained a joke to them.

 

'Go on, you've said it now' says Derek 'say another one'

 

'shhh...Shit' I say with enough firmness to ensure I am heard 'shit, bum, fuck, wank...' and with that my learned vocabulary was spent. My honour was slain and my life as an innocent was over. I gave it up with barely a fight. That motley, tawdry group sat back with a collective smugness that grates even now. I felt real anger then, not the normal fear and pensiveness, but genuine, burning anger. I wanted to stand on that desk and tell them to fuck off. I wanted to keep swearing right in their faces just, I wanted to tell them that just because I gave in, just because I spoke the way they did, that I was not one of them. I had never been one of them and had never been allowed to be me. From the day I moved to this stupid town with its stupid kids and their stupid ways I had been made to feel like I was wrong for wanting a little more, for learning the words and doing the sums and just being nice. I had done all that and been made to feel like a pariah and it was, not, fucking fair. It had never been fair.

 

The thing is though, they didn't care. They had a skinny wee pound of flesh to chew on. Someone had conformed, someone else had been beaten down and to them, and there were no repercussions. Just comforting conformity to ways they understood. A life changing moment to me was a moment’s diversion to them. Their conversation quickly span back to their usual mundane subjects. It was all football, drinking that and 'Kit-Kats' . A narrow band of interests that defined them for as long as I knew them, that from the things I here, still divert them now. With a few sniggers and a bored yawn, they slipped back into that world that lay parallel to mine. A world where aggression always wins, where affection is a joke, where to learn was frowned upon and where to just want to play your own way was tantamount to the gravest insult you could give.

 

I wanted to go home. I wanted out of that stupid classroom and out of that stupid school and this town and this world. I just wanted to be me and I could never understand why that was so wrong. I don't suppose they did either. Some things go beyond their range of thought.

 

'Fuck off' I muttered under my breath one more time. Derek looked up at me surprised. I looked back at him and for the first time did not lower my eyes.

 

That was how that particular end was started. That was the day I started to get angry rather than scared. That day I saw so many of those classmates for what they really were, dull eyed and frightened. Stuck in one way and one way only, unable to change and unwilling to learn. I lost my patience with the teachers too. Where were they when lives were being pulled away from a decent course by the low-lying weights of the school bullies? We needed to learn to fight our own fights for sure, but what price for a little help? A moment’s guidance when you had swung right off the rails and were heading to nowhere fast.

 

Nobody ever saw it that way though. They just thought I had crossed from good to bad, from white to black. They never stopped to think why, to ask any hard questions. Much of the fault lay with me for sure; my decisions were made out of anger and spite but also confusion and fear. But maybe with a quiet word, a moments understanding, more of the quiet crowd would make it through unscathed

  

Châssis n°915.033

 

Estimation :

1.900.000 - 2.400.000 €

 

southcarphotography.fr/vente-rm-auctions-paris-2015/

www.RochesterAstronomy.org/supernova.html#2023ixf

please find my observation of SN 2023ixf in the attachments. I also placed the brightness of comparison stars from the AAVSO chart. My estimation for SN is 11.7 magnitude.

 

Cheers,

Balázs Benei

bit of controversy over this one...This coach without a doubt last year should have won coach of the year but we know who won...This year for me it was the goodwins neoplan but this was also high up in my estimation and a contender for coach of the year...Instead again for the second year running it only went away with the top Volvo award...WHY....starting to think that this event is rigged...How did brethertons Volvo 9900 GL22HOL NOT WIN COACH OF THE YEAR LAST YEAR OR THIS YEAR !!!!!!!!!. Photo taken 02/04/22

A reprocess and uncropped version of another image of this pair I uploaded a few days ago. This one is the full field of view from my 80ED f/6.

 

Fireworks Galaxy NGC 6946 and Open Cluster NGC 6939

 

I've been experimenting with this image. It's a reprocess and uncropped version of the image I posted yesterday (bit.ly/2aZeH54). This time, I tried using the stacking in Photoshop instead of using my tried and true DeepSkyStacker.

 

What I find most interesting is that despite NOT using dark frames for noise reduction in this stack, the image actually turned out cleaner and with less noise than the version I stacked with DSS including dark frames. And I think the overall result is actually much nicer as a result of this.

 

That said, Photoshop lacks a lot of what I would consider critical features for doing this (like image quality estimation) and other tools, but in the case where I have a uniformly good data, the results were pretty astonishing.

 

Nikon D5100

Explore Scientific ED80

Celestron AVX mount, unguided

1H 30m of 2 min exposures @ ISO 1600

 

Visual interpretation of relief on Ariel based on depth estimation from a single image - Ariel at Voyager Closest Approach

 

Zoedepth was not trained for DTM - the 3D image may contain errors, since it's not based on a DTM but on an AI model that hasn't been trained on planets.

 

3D relief characterization test at a distance of 130,000 km from Ariel without digital terrain model.

 

The set may present problems of resolution and projection.

 

Process on 2d image : false color, not RGB

 

Enlargement, enhancement and colorisation

 

Crop of a black and white image - cleaned version available on Seti PDS

 

Surface of Ariel taken by Voyager 2 / NASA - january 24, 1986

 

Process on 3d image :

 

Not based on a DTM, but a visual interpretation of the surface

 

Thank you ZoeDepth: Zero-shot Transfer by Combining Relative and Metric Depth : see it on arxiv.org/abs/2302.12288

 

Science Credit of image taken by Voyager 2 : NASA/JPL

 

Choice of processing method (2D/3D) and process execution : Thomas Thomopoulos

 

Credit for ZoeDepth: Shariq Farooq Bhat, Reiner Birkl, Diana Wofk, Peter Wonka, Matthias Müller

 

Link NASA photojournal : photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00037

 

NASA photojournal comment on original image :

"This picture is part of the highest-resolution Voyager 2 imaging sequence of Ariel, a moon of Uranus about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) in diameter. The clear-filter, narrow-angle image was taken Jan. 24, 1986, from a distance of 130,000 km (80,000 mi). The complexity of Ariel's surface indicates that a variety of geologic processes have occurred. The numerous craters, for example, are indications of an old surface bombarded by meteoroids over a long period. Also conspicuous at this resolution, about 2.4 km (1.5 mi), are linear grooves (evidence of tectonic activity that has broken up the surface) and smooth patches (indicative of deposition of material). The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory".

   

Some quick B&W tests of the ZORKI 4 in poor light around Brentwood on expired FP4+ . I used 3 lenses,mostly near full aperture as film was rated only 80 ASA. The supplied INDUSTAR 26M 50mm f2.8 couples BUT my other lenses do not work with the Rangefinder on this ZORKI or indeed on my FED 4 so I have to set distance by 'Estimation' ( or GUESS ! )